NEW YORK - Details of the Pete Rose gambling investigation will be available to the public - but not for several years.

John Dowd, the lawyer who headed the probe that led to Rose's lifetime ban from baseball, has donated boxes of materials on Rose to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

''It is some neat stuff,'' Jim Gates, library director of the Hall of Fame, said Thursday.

Dowd sent the material to the Hall last winter, Gates said. But don't expect to be thumbing through the once-secret files anytime soon.

''We're looking at several years before they are properly indexed, put in proper boxes and files and made available to researchers,'' Gates said.

Gates looked through some of the materials earlier this year when Dowd's office requested a copy of one of the documents. While quickly going through the boxes, Gates didn't see any bombshell revelations.

''There's probably not anything that no one has seen yet or is going to be a shock,'' Gates said.

Dowd, a Washington lawyer, was hired by Fay Vincent to run the investigation for commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti. Following a six-month probe of Rose's gambling, the then-Cincinnati Reds manager agreed in August 1989 to a lifetime ban.

Rose applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with commissioner Bud Selig last November to press his case. Selig's top deputy, chief operating officer Bob DuPuy, has talked several times with Rose's representatives, and it is possible Selig could make a decision on Rose's application during the offseason.

Giamatti, Vincent and Dowd were convinced that Rose bet repeatedly on the Reds to win while he was manager of the team. Despite agreeing to the ban, Rose has steadfastly denied betting on baseball.

Gates said that the dozen boxes the Hall received from Dowd contain many of the legal documents created during the investigation. But until they are catalogued, Gates said the Hall won't know the complete contents.