DAYTON, Ohio -- The Dayton Daily News reported Sunday that it has possession of a tape recording that has Pete Rose promising to pay off a gambling debt to Richard K. Skinner, a bookie the FBI said had close ties to the Mafia and cocaine trafficking.

Skinner had a hidden tape recorder going in January of 1986 as he approached the home of Rose, at the time the player-manager of the Cincinnati Reds, to collect a 3-year-old debt.

And while tape discloses Rose describing betting only on football and horses, he did discuss his debts and extensive gambling. The tape clearly puts Rose in connection with Skinner, who sources describe as one of the biggest bookies in Ohio, with direct links to a Mafia-controlled $1 billion-a-year gambling racket.

One source said Skinner kept the secret tape recording as "insurance" in case he was ever arrested.

After listening to the tape and reading a transcript, Rose's attorney, Roger Makley of Dayton, declined to discuss it with the Daily News.

"At this point in time, I cannot comment," Makley told the Daily News. "I can't. I have listened in the past to a considerable number of tapes that were made during the course of the investigation that was conducted in the late 1980s. So this is another tape of the kind I've listened to on any number of occasions."

Makley, however, conceded to the Daily News that he couldn't recall any conversations of Rose talking directly to a bookie about his gambling.

The Daily News reports that Major League Baseball didn't know about this tape at the time it was investigating Rose before he was banned from baseball because of his gambling.

The tape recording was seized by the FBI from Skinner's home in Dayton in 1992. Skinner died in 1996, but shortly before his death told the Daily News that Rose's gambling debt had never been paid. Sources have told the Daily News the amount owed was about $30,000.