RIP Pete Rose — Few Played the Game Even Remotely Like Him

Charlie Hustle went to that great clubhouse in the sky Monday. He died unattended in his La Vegas home. No cause of death was given, though it’s known he had cardiac procedures done. He was 83.

Pete Rose’s life contained both triumph and tragedy. It was splendid on the baseball field between first pitch and the end of the game, but often a train wreck off of it.

Most fans of the Grand Old Game are familiar with Pete’s gaudy list of accomplishments as a player, his awards, his records, his endless highlights. In 23 seasons as a player and player-manager, most of them in his native Cincinnati as a member of the Reds, Pete collected more base hits, 4,256, than any Major League player ever. Before he accomplished this in 1985, Ty Cobb’s previous record of 4,191 was thought to be unreachable.

In his prime, Pete was a perennial .300 hitter. He won three batting titles and one MVP award and helped Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine to two world championships. He led both teams with 10 base hits and a .370 batting average. His Reds beat the Boston Red Sox in 1975 in what many consider the greatest World Series of all time. He was a regular starter in the National League’s All-Star lineup. He finished his career with a .303 lifetime batting average.

But it wasn’t just the numbers he put up that will imprint Pete’s memory on the minds of baseball fans forever. It was also the way he played the game. He richly deserved the sobriquet “Charlie Hustle,” as he knew only one way to play the game. That was all-out, flank-speed, attack on all fronts, take no prisoners. Had all players approached the game like Pete did, America would suffer productivity losses in spring and summer as most of the population would be watching baseball games.

Pete played both football and baseball in high school, and brought the football mentality to the diamond. On base, he was a ballistic missile. He played in an era when baseball, especially around second base and home plate, was still a contact sport. (Kinder, gentler rules lately have eliminated much of this carnage.) Opposing infielders and catchers knew not to get in his way unless they had their affairs in order. Catcher Ray Fosse of the Cleveland Indians famously learned this when Pete knocked him into low earth orbit to score the winning run in the 1970 All-Star game. Pete was criticized for doing this in an All-Star game, which is basically an exhibition game, nowadays not taken seriously at all. But it was a baseball game, and Pete took all baseball games very seriously. He didn’t have a soft pedal.

But when the shouting was over and the fans went home, life wasn’t as rosy for Rose. Addiction is a slippery concept, often used loosely. I don’t like to use it at all. But it’s fair to say after putting his body on the line in a ball game, Pete like to put his money down after hours. The man did like to gamble. Had he stayed with the slots and the ponies, all would likely have been well. But when he extended his betting to baseball games, including those involving the Cincinnati Reds he was managing at the time, his sure Baseball Hall of Fame selection was derailed. Then–Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti cast Pete into baseball outer darkness in 1991, suspending him for life. No more jobs in baseball. No Hall of Fame. For the sin of gambling on the game, which has always been verboten, he was made a baseball non-person, which he remained until his death.

Pete’s personal life was otherwise messy, with two divorces, and a lost paternity suit. He leaves behind two ex-wives and five children. A man shouldn’t be judged by the comments of his ex-wife, which of course represent only one side of the case. But I recall his first wife Karolyn appearing on a talk show. From memory, two of her comments stick out: “As a human being, Pete was a great ball player.” And, asked about Pete’s intellectual interests, she replied: “The only book I ever saw him read was The Pete Rose Story, and he skipped parts of that.”

Funny, but Pete had no chance for on-air rebuttal. For all the post-game missteps, baseball fans would rather focus now on his heroics on the field than on the various ways he ran amok off of it. Giamatti’s decision to ban Rose for life, especially the no Hall-of-Fame part, was controversial with fans. I was fine with banning him from jobs in the game, which fans have to believe is straight on the field. But banning him from the Hall seems as much like punishing the fans as punishing Pete. Pete finally admitted betting on baseball, but insisted he never bet against the Reds when he was managing, which he could have choreographed to his advantage.

Out of the game, Pete kept body and soul together very nicely selling autographs and meet-and-greet sessions with his estimable self. It’s reported he made in the neighborhood of a half million dollars yearly doing this. Took a bit of the sting out of not having a plaque in Cooperstown. In fact, he was at a sports show in Tennessee the day before his death. Charlie Hustle. Hustling to the end.

RIP. And thanks for the memories.

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