Former baseball star Pete Rose's defamation lawsuit against a member of President Donald Trump's legal team took a hit Monday when a court filing brought to light allegations from an alleged victim who said she had sex with Rose while under the age of 16. The filing significantly shifts the focus of the litigation, and has left some wondering whether Rose should have filed the case at all.

“If there's stuff like that out there, you have to question if you want to step up to the batter's box,” defamation lawyer George Bochetto of Bochetto & Lentz said. “That's always the problem with bringing a defamation action. To the extent that there's any dirt out there, even if it's unrelated to the defamation, it's still part of his reputation, so you run the risk of having all this stuff come out of the woodwork.”

Bochetto noted that context is extremely significant in these cases, and, without reviewing all of the case files, there no way to say whether or not Rose ultimately should have brought the claims. However, he said the fact that these allegations are now out there for public consumption presents a major hurdle for Rose, who played mainly with the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies during a long career in which he set the Major League Baseball record for most hits.