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“PETE ROSE-VS-HISTORY”
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So how should we remember the ‘Hit King’, who left us on Monday afternoon?

Pete Rose passed away in obscurity, a disgraced legend in a sport he helped move into a new era.

Legendary as the greatest hitter the game has seen.  He blew by Ty Cobb’s historical records, finishing with (4,256) career hits.

He also blew away his credibility in the aftermath of the Dowd Report, cited for gambling on baseball games, including the Cincinnati Reds teams he managed in the 1980s, after he spent 24-years starring in the game he was passionate about.

His career momentos, bats, balls, jerseys, hats are in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

He himself was never allowed entrance into the Hall, as baseball invoked the rules that dated back to the 1919-Black Sox scandal, the Shoeless Joe Jackson-attempt to throw the World Series.

The player, the personality, defined a rebirth of baseball in the 1970s and 1980s.  His style, his flair, his persona, his skill, was something to behold.

A 17-time All Star…an MVP…3-World Series rings…3-batting titles…2-gold gloves, the 44-game hitting streak.

He was the straw that stirred the Cincinnati Big Red Machine drink.  He drove the Phillies to excellence in the sunset of his career.

His personality was as big as the game.

But so was his addiction to gambling and the lies, and the failures as a father and husband.

He lied-denied for 15-years he bet on baseball, but after being denied entrance to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, he finally admitted in 2005 he did it.

Of course you had to buy his book to read about it.  Always the huckster.  Also remembered as the guy who would set up a card table at a bar in Cooperstown on Hall of Fame weekend, selling his autograph to anyone who would pony up the $50 signing fee.  It became an embarrassment to baseball.

Always the Charley Hustle approach to life and baseball.  Always about attention and him getting money.

Part of me thinks he deserved to be in the Hall of Fame.  The other part of me, says no, forever no.  Then Commissioner Bart Giamatti called the findings in the Rose probe-were the ‘saddest day in baseball history’.  Giamatti dropped dead a week after Rose agreed to the lifetime ban.  Bud Selig and Rob Manfred never spoke of the glowing accomplishments of Rose, only citing Rule 21, the gambling rule, what he did and what he admitted too.  End of the Cooperstown conversation.

Part of me says you cannot write baseball’s history without him being part of it.  Of course you had to write the history that also included Ty Cobb-the racist, Babe Ruth-the womanizer and Mickey Mantle-booze and broads.  Of course you can now add the juiced era wrapped around Mark McGuire, Alex Rodriguez and that ilk.

There was an arrogance about him at home plate..the (.303) batting average, the (1,314) RBIs…the (.348) hitting season..the way he played, running over Ray Fosse in the All Star Game, getting into a bad brawl with Bud Harrelson and the Mets.

He was Mr. Baseball from 1963-to-1986, but it was never enough.

There was an arrogance in life too, the broken marriages, the kids out of wedlock, the lawsuits about sex with underage girls too, and the lifetime of denials and lies.  There was income tax evasion and a prison term.  He wanted you to forget all that.

I couldn’t.  I read the sleazy Dowd report.  Shocked that this man, this era, would do all that, and then deny it, this addiction to money, gambling, glory.  Shocked at how many bets he placed from a team hotel in San Diego-the opening game of the 1983 season.  Shocked at the documentation of calls he made to gamblers from the manager’s office in the stadium, before the Padres-Reds games.

Now there is a knot in my stomach, when I think of his name, despite the player I followed, liked and even interviewed.

Pete Rose was revered in Cincinnati, still is, just like the steroid cheat Barry Bonds still is in San Francisco.  The Reds Hall of Fame, next to the Great American Ballpark, has a wall display of all of the balls from Rose’s record hits over that 24-year career.

But there is something that I cannot accept.  He loved baseball history.  He knew baseball history.  And yet he did in Cincinnati what the Black Sox did back in the day, because he was Pete Rose and he thought he could do anything.  Hits to bets to lies included.

He belongs in the Hall, with all his memorabilia.  Baseball would have to put an asterisk next to his name if that ever happened.  But tough to forgive a superstar who became a slug.  He whined constantly about ‘being punished forever’.  Guess he did not understand the meaning of the word ‘lifetime’.

His favorite phrase-‘I played the game right’.  Yes, but he didn’t live life the right way.

What a talent-what a terrible person.
What a baseball treasure.  What a disgrace.
What a struggle, Pete Rose-vs-History.

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