Dan Weber’s Just Sayin’: Saying ‘so long’ to Pete Rose; there’ll never be another like him

By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter

For those of us of a certain demographic, there’s no way the news that Pete Rose passed away at the age of 83 in Las Vegas Monday doesn’t hit us the way Pete hit a baseball.

We all grew up with the guy who Yankees’ baseball royalty Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle dismissively labeled “Charley Hustle” the first time they saw him run to first on a walk in spring training. We grew up with Pete as fans. We all knew guys who grew up with Pete and played with Pete. For some of us, the first we knew of Pete was an undersized running back for Western Hills High School.

Running is the operative word there. In Pete’s world, there was simply no place for walking. His dad, the original “Pete” and a Sedamsville Sunday football legend who played well into his 40s and whose story was passed down to me by my dad, who played for Ludlow in the league while he was in medical school, talked of how he pushed little Pete as hard as he pushed himself. And little Pete loved it.

But as much as we put the record-breaking Pete Rose’s accomplishments into focus, like those 4,256 base hits – more than anyone else in baseball history — Pete liked to talk about playing in more winning games – 1,972 — than anyone else ever as the real record. He also played in more games and had more at-bats than anyone else ever.

No one played harder, smarter or made better use of their talents. No one was a better competitor. No one.

Playing 24 seasons in MLB allowed us to see that in Pete. But as much as has been made of Pete loving the limelight, I still recall a road trip I made to Philadelphia and Montreal to watch the Big Red Machine during the days when my spring, summer and fall job – as a teacher and coach at Covington Catholic — was night stadium superintendent for the Reds at Riverfront Stadium.

Every single night, Pete was the first Red out on to the field. And waiting for whoever was the newest, youngest Red to arrive next when Pete immediately would engage them in a pepper game, making it clear if baseball’s “hit king” Pete accepted them, they were in.

Pete had that ability. No wonder the very first year he arrived in Philadelphia, the underachieving Phillies won their first-ever World Series. That’s the way Pete worked. As much a one-of-a-kind individual star who ever played any game and yet the ultimate team guy, as the Big Red Machine proved.

All you need to know about his willingness to put team first is that long-time second-baseman Pete moved to third base, first base, left field and right field for the Reds, wherever they needed him. All you need to know about Pete’s ability to play baseball at the absolutely highest level the game has ever been played is that he made the All-Star team 17 times – and at all five of those positions. No one else could ever, or will ever, match that accomplishment. Or even come close.

Pete needed action. It’s why one spring when we showed up at Turfway Park, we realized the press box had been literally cut in half for the media. The other half was now Pete’s personal box, in a commentary of how good a customer Pete was and maybe also how not a great handicapper as well.

We got to know Pete when he would park his red Porsche with gold trim out by our office behind the right-centerfield fence and give us all a “Hi” as he went by from his private parking spot.

But that was hardly the first connection we had with Pete. There was that time when the faculty at CovCath was set up for a fundraiser basketball game against Pete’s Cincinnati Reds All-Stars also featuring Johnny Bench. Can’t remember how the game went but do recall watching Pete, all 5-foot-11 and 200 pounds, two-hand tomahawk-dunk a basketball for those of you who didn’t realize what a great athlete Pete was.

But it was after the game that the other side of Pete – the numbers’ sharpie who played these games for the cash he needed to bet in the offseason since he had been put on an allowance by his attorney. And when it came time to settle up, the official total of 800 at $10 a head was the number through the front gates for the 50-50 split.

Not so fast, Pete said. He had a guy counting the house and there were 830 there. And he was correct. At least 30 came in the back way through the coaches’ offices. So his half would be $4,150, Pete reckoned correctly. And for the CovCath fundraiser, the final take would be $3,850.

Still recall the night Pete broke the all-time hits record. At The Kentucky Post, we didn’t do Reds baseball, unless it was a night like when Covington’s Randy Marsh debuted his major league umpiring career here. But to our good luck, it was also Maysville Night and so we went, and watched Pete break the record and wrote about it as the crowd of more than 47,000 had something of a Kentucky Post country flavor.

We were also there the first day Pete – just out after serving five months in federal prison on a tax conviction – made his first autograph show appearance in a Philadelphia suburb near where we were then living and I was working. As the only sportswriter there that day, I got to spend some one-on-one time with Pete and could tell right away: Prison hadn’t changed Pete. Nothing was ever going to.

He lied about his betting on baseball for years. Was it the embarrassment? Or the fear that what eventually happened to him would indeed happen to him and he’d be separated from the game. But when his playing career came to an end, Pete’s competitive nature needed the action that betting gave him. He didn’t need some of the characters around him who helped him bet.

From our point of view, we wish he’d had one change in a life that saw everything – except the vices of drugs and drinking that he avoided for his lifetime – pushed to the limit.
In a world where you can make a bet on the next pitch, it seems, inside Great American Ball Park, and where in the pursuit of money, Major League Baseball has joined hands with major league betting operations, that there would have been a way to bring Pete gracefully back into the baseball fold.

And into the Hall of Fame. He’d done his time. And knew he’d screwed up. And wished he hadn’t even if he had trouble admitting it for so long. But if Pete doesn’t have a place in the Hall of Fame, although at least three items – his helmet, bat and spikes — from his remarkable 24-year playing career are there, there is this.

I checked to see where Pete was in one all-time career stat – runs scored. And there he was, sixth all-time, behind the two tied for fourth that you may have heard of – Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron – and ahead of the two right behind him – Willie Mays and Stan Musial.

Pete didn’t make it to Cooperstown, although we ran into him once there signing autographs next door to the Hall of Fame, but we’re guessing he understood – as did the fans who saw him play – that he belonged. And no one can ever take that away from him.

Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at dweber3440.