MOBILE, Ala. -- President Clinton thinks Pete Rose deserves a second chance, and Rose couldn't agree more.

"Yes, I made some mistakes in the people I associated with, and I bet on football," Rose said Tuesday, in town to serve as a grand marshal for the Mobile Alabama Bowl. "But I never did anything to hurt the game of baseball. I never even bad-mouthed the game."

Clinton recently said he would like to see Rose admitted to the Hall of Fame someday, preferably during the former Cincinnati star's lifetime.

Rose said he also had the support of former President Carter, calling him "a good friend of mine," who has "always been supportive of me."

Rose included himself with Clinton, who survived impeachment proceedings, and former football star O.J. Simpson, acquitted in the killing of his wife, as three men in situations closely followed in the media.

"In the last 10 or 11 years, probably three of us have been through hell in the course of a year or so," Rose said.

Rose agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 after a gambling investigation. A year later, the Hall of Fame adopted a rule making players banned for life ineligible for the Hall ballot.

Rose sought reinstatement in 1997, to which baseball commissioner Bud Selig has not formally responded.

Selig, no fan of Clinton's since the president refused to back recommendations of mediator W.J. Usery during the 1994-95 strike, turned Rose's petition over to Robert Dupuy, baseball's executive vice president for administration. Dupuy expects to meet next month with Rose's lawyer, Roger Makley of Dayton, Ohio. Neither Dupuy nor Makley immediately returned phone messages left at their offices Tuesday.

"I don't like to comment too much about what's going to happen. If you comment too much, I don't think they like it," Rose said.

Rose said he didn't know when the meeting would take place or if he would be allowed to attend.

"I hope I'm invited, or it just might be lawyers. We're not looking for any kind of fight at all," he said.

But Rose lashed out at comments from former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent, who in a Dec. 8 op-ed piece in The New York Times said Rose's "redemptive efforts" would be advanced if he gave a full explanation of "what he did and why."

"I wonder if Fay Vincent has a life," Rose said. "Here's a guy that's got all the money in the world. Every time I read a quote from him, I ask myself: Is he still working on the case?"

If he's ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Rose said at this stage it would probably mean more to his 10-year-old daughter and his 15-year-old son, "because they didn't get to see me play. I don't know how I would feel going into the Hall of Fame."

Rose, who lives in Los Angeles, said he has lost his taste for gambling, and regrets doing it.

"I can honestly tell you I do no more illegal betting. I still patronize the race track occasionally, because I'm a race fan. And I'm very select with the people I associate with, because I was told by (former baseball commissioner) Bart Giamatti to reconfigure my life," Rose said.

But he said baseball can be a little hypocritical, too.

"They can harp on the gambling situation, but I know for a fact there's eight ballparks that have big gambling casino advertising inside the ballparks. So if they are really 100 percent against gambling, don't take the casino's money."