I don’t really have anything fresh or new to say about Pete Rose. Still, when the all-time Major League hit leader dies — as Pete Rose did on Monday — how can someone who calls himself a sportswriter not write something? And, as a reminder, though writing about hockey has been my profession for years, I’ve long been — and continue to be — a much bigger baseball fan.
I first started paying any attention to baseball in 1972. Playoff games. In the afternoon. Oakland against Detroit in the American League Championship Series. Cincinnati against Pittsburgh in the National League. Then, the A’s and Reds for the World Series. Oakland won, and really, most of my memories are of them. But Rose was there, as he would be through the years of my early baseball life, which went from casual fan to rabid follower once the Blue Jays got started in 1977.
Until the Blue Jays, I’d mostly watched baseball only at World Series time. So the 1975 and 1976 wins by Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” put Rose (and Johnny Bench, and Tony Perez, and Dave Conception, and George Foster, and Ken Griffey, and Sparky Anderson) firmly into my baseball mind. During the summer of 1978, on a family trip to Israel, my brothers and I followed baseball — a day or two after the fact, as I recall — in the pages of the International Herald Tribune. Pete Rose’s hit streak, which ran to 44 games (still the longest since Joe DiMaggio’s record 56-gamer in 1941), and which we followed in those pages, further solidified Rose for me as an historic baseball figure.
And, of course, Pete Rose was Charlie Hustle. Even now, when everyone slides into bases head first, the way Rose dove into bases still looks unique. And threatening. Never the most gifted athlete, Rose willed himself to greatness with a drive that has rarely been matched. But fans (especially young fans like me) knew little about the dark side of that drive. His womanizing … and his compulsion to gamble.
Which would lead to his lifetime ban from baseball in 1989.
Which would keep baseball’s all-time hit leader out of the Hall of Fame.
I’ve never been much of a gambler. And I get that pretty much the number one rule for athletes (although it’s actually rule 21 D in the baseball rule book) is don’t gamble on your own sport. Especially in a game in which you’re involved. For many good reasons! And yet, today, when gambling is everywhere in the way we consume sports, it seems almost hypocritical to keep Rose out of baseball.
But he did break the rule.
Though a 35-year sentence seems an awfully long time.
People get less for murder!
Back in 2015, Pete Rose had been hopeful, when Rob Manfred became baseball’s new commissioner, that he might be re-instated. Rose was allowed to take part in a handful of Major League events, but he was never fully welcomed back.
And now, he’s dead at 83 years old.
So, does a lifetime ban end with the end of a lifetime?
Shoeless Joe Jackson, banned for life for his part in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, when the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to throw the World Series, has yet to be reinstated. Seven other teammates were banished with Jackson, but he was the only one likely to have wound up in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
I heard it said on Monday night that Pete Rose had no interest in being inducted posthumously, basically saying, ‘My family might appreciated it, but what do I care after I’m dead?’
Even so, will Rose be reinstated?
Will he finally make it to the Hall of Fame?
Does a lifetime ban end with his lifetime?
(The wording in Rule 21 d 3 is actually “permanently ineligible.”)
I guess we’ll see.
But it seems sad that if it finally happens, it’ll happen without him.
Pete Rose Major League Records
• Most Career Hits 4,256
• Most Games Played 3,562
• Most At Bats 14,053
• Most Singles 3,315
• Most Total Bases Switch Hitter 5,752
• Most Season 200 or more hits 10 (tied with Ichiro Suzuki)
• Most Season 600 or more At Bats 17
• Most Season 150 or more games played 17
• Only Major League Player in History to Play 500 Games at 5 Positions
National League Records
• Most Doubles 746
• Longest Consecutive Game Hitting Steak (44 Games) 1978
• Batting Champ 1968, 1969, 1973
I suppose not everyone can get away with wrongdoing!
Fantastic run down of the Pete Rose story. Your whole family was involved in baseball as I remember. I love the way you talk about the situation he found himself in. I don’t think it will do any good to put him in the Hall of Fame. These awards mean something to the person who receives it when alive. He will be remembered in any case as witnessed by the press he received when he just died. Thanks for working on this.
Pete Rose was not a role model as a human. He charged for his autograph etc. But sport isn’t about personal character, it is about stats. Ty Cobb was a horrible person. Roger Clements isn’t great as a human. Pete Rose is the all-time hit leader.
Harold Ballard is honoured as a builder when in fact he was a destroyer. Hall of Fame can be Hall of Shame too.
Let Rose be in Cooperstown with a plaque explaining why he was not honoured. Steriod cheaters could also be posted. Ultimately they all will be seen as men playing a game, not doing something earth shattering and lasting. As in life, some people are cheats and liars … which is why we should avoid the cult of personality … in life and in politics too.
As someone who grew up with Ebbets Field’s Dodgers, I always favored the National League and liked Cincy — and Pete Rose. Thank you, Eric, for this “Tour De Pete.”
Eric,
A very nice and well encapsulated history about Pete Rose. Being of the same “age vintage” I too grew up watching and admiring Pete and how he played the game. I wore his number and tried to emulate the way he played the game.
As a person was he a flawed man… clearly, as are we all in some way, shape or form.
What has happened to Pete, when we look at the history of baseball, in my mind has been at minimum hypocritical and maybe even appalling.
Let’s recognize that Rose Rose had an addiction. His was not simply to drugs, but to gambling… but an addiction nonetheless. Steve Howe had a drug addiction…and was given not one or two or three..but seven chances by MLB. Our own (Canadian boy) Fergie Jenkins was arrested for hash, cocaine and marijuana and was actually given a lifetime ban, only to be reinstated.Willie Mays and Mickie Mantle worked at Casinos (yes, after their playing careers). Also banned for life… only to be later reinstated.
Probably even more heinous behavior (IMHO) was that of the owner of the Reds Marge Schott in 1996 being banned for repeatedly racist remarks about African Americans, Jews, Asians and homosexuals. Not only was she allowed to still own the team, but was reinstated in 1998. BTW, I have never read anything saying she ever changed her beliefs on these matters.
Pete Rose was an outstanding baseball player, a flawed human in many aspects of his personal life, with what we all know to be an addiction. He paid the ultimate price for this addiction in life. Maybe in death, we can give him some peace.
Interesting point about addictions. Baseball seems to have endless patience for those on drugs — as long as it’s not steriods! — but no one ever really spoke about Rose’s gambling as a mental addiction. And Marge Schott is just an extreme example of how much you can get away with in sports … as long as you don’t gamble.
Obviously a great athlete with with some faults. Interesting as always.