What a surprise…Pete Rose bet on baseball.
Rose was my favorite ball player, with Johnny Bench being a close second. It should come as no surprise that I was a Reds fan. I always thought he played the game the way it should be played.
Big Pete’s ego was (and is) enormous. In a TV interview, he’s wearing a suit and tie, but something else caught my eye–the number 14 embroidered on his shirt collar. It’s really sad. The only thing this man has is his memories because he pissed away everything else.
Rose is not someone I would ever have wanted to know. He lived large, but always in a way that put Pete Rose front and center to the exclusion of all else. He was the prototype for most professional athletes of today. He got the nickname “Charlie Hustle” because he ran out every base on balls. Not just ran, but sprinted. In his way, it was how he said to everyone “Look at me!” The nickname was not a term of endearment, it was an insult from players who had been around.
Rose’s goal was to pass Ty Cobb’s hit record. He did. Along the way he showed how much his own ego meant relative to team. When Bench and Joe Morgan negotiated contracts which paid them more than he was making, he insisted on renegotiation. When the Reds balked, he went to Philadelphia at his first opportunity–still in the National League so he could break the NL hit record if he didn’t get the overall.
When it looked like he was going to break it, he managed to go back to Cincinnati. Once his playing days were over, he stayed on as a “playing manager” to try and increase his numbers.
He was my favorite player of the time, but nowhere near being one of my favorite people. Being banned from baseball was what he deserved. The rules on gambling were very well known, as was the penalty. He chose to ignore them all. It’s time to ignore him, also.
He earned a place in the Hall of Fame, but that honor wasn’t important enough to him to keep him away from betting on games he played and managed. Staying out of Cooperstown was his choice.