Here’s another great article. Maybe I should just change the name of my blog to joeposnanski.com. Unless you’re a hard core baseball fan you won’t find the statistical comparisons interesting, but it’s got some great observations about Pete Rose.
Other than Woody, Pete Rose is my favorite sports figure and by far my favorite baseball player, even today, despite the fact he’s let the character traits that made him a great baseball player turn him into a fairly despicable old coot. The ideas below from Joe’s article capture that thought pretty well
“Even now, I believe, baseball fans hunger for Pete Rose. They don’t hunger for the old Pete Rose, of course, the crotchety Rose penciling himself into the lineup so he could break the unbreakable hit record, the manager Rose who had a standing bet on his team, the unrepentant Rose who would show up in Cooperstown to sign autographs for his very own Hall of Fame, the repentant Rose who will write ”I’m sorry I bet on baseball,“ on a baseball and then sign his name for the right price.”
“No, it’s the young Rose we’re talking about here, the in-your-face Rose, the run-over-Ray-Fosse Rose, the run-to-first-base-on-a-walk Rose, the switch-hitting, double stretching, headfirst diving, double-play busting, Bud-Harrelson fighting, father admiring, often quotable, self-promotable, always notable Peter Edward Rose. I suspect that people who are younger than, say, 35 or so, have only fuzzy memories of that Rose, or no memory at all.”
This is the guy I choose to remember.
Pete Rose was a professional baseball player for my entire young life. He first made it to the major leagues in 1963, before I was born, and retired in 1986 when I was midway through college. If you grew up in the Cincinnati area during that time you couldn’t help but be influenced by Pete. If you didn’t, it may not be possible to understand the connection on the same level.
In addition to countless other games I watched a lot of Pete Rose’s greatest moments. And when I say watched, I mean watched. This was long before Sportcenter highlights, internet links and Youtube. Cincinnati Reds baseball, in the 1970’s particularly, was must see TV before there was must see TV. More accurately, must see TV with the volume turned down so you could listen to Marty and Joe.
I watched two World Series wins (1975 & 1976) his 3,000th hit (1978), his 4,000th hit (1984), a lot of his 44 game hit streak in 1984 including the night it ended and his 4,192nd hit to become the all-time leader. It was hard to miss those last couple hits as the networks broke into TV shows to televise every at bat. I was at Miami University and watched from one of our 4 couches with my roommates. The standing ovation in the stadium afterwards must have been at least 10 minutes long.
As an aside, I didn’t know until looking it up to verify the year but Pete got the record breaking hit on September 11th, 1985. 9-11 before it was 9-11.
In between a lot of beer and Bruno’s pizza that year, we also watched the Space Shuttle Challenger explode and Geraldo Rivera open Al Capone’s vault from those couches. It was quite a year.
I’ve often tried to explain to people who grew up under different circumstances, and many who didn’t but have since dis-owned him, how I could continue to be a fan. For me, in hindsight, it’s seems simple.
You could be Pete Rose.
If a guy with that little natural athletic ability, other than what must have been phenomenal hand-eye coordination, could be one of the best players ever then you could aspire to excellence as well. He simply took his skills and outworked everyone else. Despite his many significant weaknesses as a person surely that is a characteristic worth valuing. Maybe it’s a Mid-Western thing. The fact that he was born and raised in Cincinnati only makes the connection stronger.
There’s no way to relate in the same way to someone, regardless of work ethic, who is simply gifted. It doesn’t matter how hard I work, and there are only 5 letters, but I’ll never understand E = mc 2.
But I understand outworking the competition. The world could use a few more head-first sliders.
As an extra bonus if you’ve managed to read this far, here are some of the old Aqua Velva commercials. If you pay attention you’ll see the Mom from the TV show Eight is Enough and Mel, the owner of the diner from the show Alice.
