Pete Rose died Monday at 83. He will go to his grave with the Major League baseball record for hits (4,256) and the black mark of being banned from the game for betting on baseball.
During a visit to The Villages in 2018, Rose offered no apologies for betting and claimed to care less about a Hall of Fame plaque in Cooperstown.
“Forget about that Hall of Fame. I’m in the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame, and that’s what matters,” Rose said defiantly, earning loud cheers from a half-full Savannah Center.
Rose — dubbed Charlie Hustle– was a complex figure. Between the white lines on the field, you couldn’t help but love the way he played with reckless abandon and explosive energy.
Physically, Rose was not a gifted athlete. But his grit, determination and passion for victory made him a star.
Off the field, Rose was an addictive gambler who would bet on anything. Some estimates put his losses at $100 million.
Like “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, Rose was an immense talent who was booted off the diamond for gambling. Unlike Shoeless Joe – who helped throw the 1919 World Series with the Chicago White Sox — Rose never threw a game. He just couldn’t stop gambling during his three decades as a player and manager.
In 1989, he was banned from baseball.
“I’ve been suspended over 30 years. That’s a long time to be suspended for betting on your own team to win,” Rose once told Forbes. “And I was wrong. But that mistake was made. Time usually heals everything. It seems like it does in baseball, except when you talk about the Pete Rose case.”
These days, sports gambling seems to be our national pastime. You can’t watch any sporting event without being invited to place a bet.
Big League Baseball, like the National Football League along with pro basketball and hockey, are making millions – probably billions – with gambling companies.
But during Rose’s nearly three decades in baseball, pro sports abhorred gambling or the hint of scandal.
Didn’t matter to Rose who told the crowd about playing in Philadelphia for the Phillies.
“I had some good times in Philadelphia,” he told Villagers. “We went to the World Series and I bet on the Eagles.”
Most of his career was spent in Cincinnati. Rose played 24 seasons and finished with a .303 batting average. He played for the Reds from 1963 through 1978 and was part of the famed Big Red Machine.
That team won the 1975 World Series against the Boston Red Sox in seven games.
“I grew up three miles from the Cincinnati ballpark. It meant a lot to me,” Rose told the crowd. “It was one of the greatest World Series of all time and I was named the Series MVP.”
Rose was hustling and gambling long before he became a big-league ballplayer. He talked about growing up in Cincinnati, and hanging out with a Major Leaguer – the late Don Zimmer.
“Don’s dad was a big gambler,” Rose said. “That’s where all that (stuff) started (with me).”
Rose’s father pushed him hard.
“There’s only one guy I idolized, and that was my dad,” Rose said. “He was my mentor; the perfect guy to make me the ballplayer I became.”
He said his dad told him: ‘Don’t ever embarrass me” on a baseball field.’ That’s why I always played so hard,” Rose added.
It was another flawed baseball hero – Mickey Mantle – who gave Rose a historic baseball moniker.
“It was 1963, my rookie year, and we were playing the Yankees in spring training,” Rose said. “I came in as a pinch runner. I slid, head first, into third base. Then a guy hit a pop up that the shortstop (Tony Kubek) caught. I ran to home and slid head first. We won the game.
“After the game, Mantle told reporters, ‘Did you see that Charlie Hustle beat us today?’ The next day the headline in the papers was: Charlie Hustle Beats Yankees.”
Baseball abandoned Rose, but his fans never did. One was Villager Kenny Kayser, who grew up in Cincinnati, and said after seeing him that night:
“He should be in the Hall of Fame. Pete Rose did a lot for baseball. They’ve got drunks, gamblers and other players who did a lot worse than Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame.”
After Rose finished speaking, he signed autographs and talked to fans. One of them was Brandon Aiello, then 13.
“Pete Rose was a crazy good baseball player and I want to play just like him,” Brandon said. “I’ve seen video of him and I know his record – 4,256 hits. No one else did that and he should be in the Hall of Fame.”
So now, the book of life has closed on Pete Rose. We hold athletes in special stature. They represent us on the field and win for our city.
Athletes can be the bond that helps connect people to their communities.
Too often, though, athletes –even beloved stars like Pete Rose – are fragile human beings with human failings.
I remember watching Rose speak that night in The Villages. I thought he resonated with kind of a guilt free arrogance about his gambling woes.
I wrote, that Rose came across “as a bawdy, rambunctious, rambling, gambling man.”
It was all part of his blue-collar charm. Rose was an average guy who made himself into a great player.
But it wasn’t enough. For baseball, Rose’s personal fault line was more important than his Hall of Fame worthy stat line.
Tony Violanti wrote a nationally published book on baseball, “Miracle in Buffalo” (St. Martin’s Press, 1991). It included an interview with Joe DiMaggio.
