Reflections on Pete Rose’s tragically heroic journey

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Legend has it that, shortly after arriving at the ballpark in Geneva, N.Y. to begin his professional baseball career in the New York-Penn League in the spring of 1960, Pete Rose inquired who the starting second baseman was. After being told the player’s name, the cocky, 19-year-old Rose blurted: “Not any more.”

The career of the man who would become known fondly and derisively as “Charlie Hustle” was off-and-running with all the subtlety of a baserunner bowling over a catcher. The nickname fit like a batting glove and would apply to his illustrious career on the diamond and his not-so-exemplary life off it, which, sadly, came to an end Monday at age 83.

Rose went on to squeeze more from his abilities than any athlete I’ve ever seen. He played in more games (3,562), made more plate appearances (15,890) and rapped more hits (4,256) than any player in Major League Baseball history. But the same fire that warms can also burn. Rose’s wagers on games he managed with the Cincinnati Reds resulted in a lifetime banishment from the sport he loved since he was knee-high to a bat rack. And by stubbornly refusing to admit guilt for nearly 15 years despite a preponderance of evidence, he further tarnished his image and sabotaged his attempts to earn enshrinement into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He was a tragic figure straight out of a Shakespearean play, with many of his wounds self-inflicted.

I interviewed Rose a handful of times through the years. He was a fascinating character. Our exchanges were always lively. Here’s what I wrote after one of those sessions nearly three decades ago:

“You look at the meaty forearms, the barrel chest, the cock-sure grin, and the memories come rushing back. Head-first slides. Line drives out of a crouch. Uniforms smeared with dirt. Endless summer days filled with hope and promise.

“Pete Rose was baseball for many of us. He played the game as it was meant to be played – accelerator to the floor, all out, all the time. He was the classic overachiever. He made us feel as if anything were possible if we put our hearts into it and weren’t afraid to get a little dirty.

“Then one day the man behind the myth was revealed. We learned that Rose hung around with shady characters, that he ran up huge gambling debts, that he wasn’t exactly a father-of-the-year candidate, that he cheated on his wife and his taxes. Instead of the Hall of Fame, Peter Rose wound up in the Hall of Justice for tax evasion. The commissioner of baseball banned him from the game. A judge sent him to prison. An American hero became an American tragedy.”

I typed those words just after Rose had completed five months behind bars and 1,000 hours of community service. He was hustling at that point to burnish his damaged image, but he was still denying he had gambled on his games. That admission wouldn’t come until 2004, and it came in typical Charlie Hustle fashion, as part of an opportunity to make a buck with the release of his memoir, “My Prison without Bars.”

Several years after he came clean, I interviewed Rose again, this time in Cooperstown, where he was signing autographs at a tent set up at the corner of Main and Pioneer. He was campaigning to have his ban lifted. Before talking to Rose, I went to the Hall, about a block away, and counted the steps from the room where the plaques were hung to the autograph tent. It was 275 paces, roughly 700 feet, and as I wrote in a column the next day, the distance between him and that hallowed Hall felt like a million miles.

As the years passed, my view of Rose softened. I’ve had friends and relatives who have dealt with addiction, so I’m familiar with its vice-like grip. I would walk away from my Rose interviews feeling sadness rather than anger. What had worked so marvelously for him on the diamond, where he was always the smartest and most driven player, failed him in real life. Never backing down while competing was laudable, made Rose the “Hit King.” But with addiction, victory only comes when you admit defeat; when you acknowledge you have a problem and need help. Only then, can you find the courage to change.

I had that conversation with Pete one time, but he either didn’t comprehend what I was saying or didn’t want to. Denial is a big part of addiction, and I believe until the day he died, Pete, who spent his latter days in Las Vegas – the gambling capital of the world – never believed he had a problem. If only he had recognized it and sought help, perhaps things might have turned out differently, and perhaps he could have become a role model and called attention to the pervasiveness of a disease that has destroyed millions of lives.

Rose’s sentence struck me as increasingly hypocritical in recent years, particularly since MLB – like all the major sports leagues – jumped off its moral high horse and climbed in bed with every gambling site imaginable because there were gazillions to be made. I was hoping some compassion would be shown, that the banishments of Rose and the late Shoeless Joe Jackson would be lifted. Back in 2014, I read a superb book by Kostya Kennedy titled, “Pete Rose: An American Dilemma.” It prompted me to re-think my position about Rose and the Hall. Charlie Hustle had indeed become an American dilemma, as had Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and all the other stars who purportedly used drugs to enhance their muscles and statistics. Each, in his own way, damaged the game’s credibility. But there are plenty of sinners in the accompaniment of the saints in Cooperstown, including several racists, addicts, and philanderers.

It’s time to address this dilemma, to show some mercy and make Pete and Shoeless Joe eligible for enshrinement. It’s just too bad it didn’t happen sooner, so that Rose and his legion of fans could have enjoyed their moment of joy and healing.

Best-selling author and nationally honored journalist Scott Pitoniak is the Rochester Business Journal’s sports columnist.