I remember something I read, decades ago, about Joe Jackson. I'm pretty sure it was in one of Bill James' annuals, but I won't die on that hill. The gist was that, after EVERY player, manager, coach, umpire, executive, owner, journalist, anyone else, who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame is in the Hall of Fame, then it would be time to include Jackson. I've always thought of Pete Rose in the same category as Joe.
A well balanced and thoughtful piece on Rose. It reminded me of something (probably the only thing) I learned in my college literature class: that a tragedy is generally the story of a hero or great man who is inevitably and irresistibly done in by an inherent personality flaw that makes his downfall inevitable.
By this standard, Rose's story is NOT a tragedy. He was without question one of the greatest players in history. But his downfall was not the result of an irresistible flaw in Rose's character, but rather a series of conscious decisions to disrespect the game. He was aware that players betting on games was an existential threat to the integrity the game. He never acknowledged and accepted moral responsibility for his actions, much less express genuine remorse. He spurned and publicly mocked efforts by Commissioners to provide a "glide path" for Rose to attain at least partial redemption.
I am agnostic as to whether Rose's accomplishments should be recognized in the Hall of Fame, as a historical reality. But if a plaque to Rose is to be installed in Cooperstown, that history should be complete. It should conclude with an epitaph along the lines of: "Pete Rose was one of the best hitters ever to play the game. He loved playing baseball. And craved recognition as King of Baseball. But he never appreciated or respected the institution of baseball, its history and traditions. He was a giant and champion on the field, but a disgrace to the game due to his actions off the field."
Pete Rose was born on April 14, 1941, which was the opening day of the 1941 season. He passed away on September 30, 2024, which was the final (extended) day of the regular season. You might accurately say Rose was born, lived, and died with baseball. It was his life through and through. That is beautiful AND terrifically sad, and that was Pete Rose in so many ways.
In a Curt Smith collection of broadcaster stories, Jon Miller says that at the Hall of Fame, the big thing for the Cooperstown people is the return of the inductees. And his guess was that a lot of inductees had made clear that if Rose went in, they were staying home. It occurred to me when I read it that for 20 years, Miller spent every Sunday night during the season with Joe Morgan, who later became a leading figure at the Hall. I suspect Morgan told him that, and that he heard it from the others.
so a close friend of mine posed this question: he had a lifetime ban - his life is now over. as such isn't his sentence complete? He paid his dues - now shouldn't he be eligible for and inducted in, the Baseball HOF?
It was for the lifetime of the universe. Actually it was "permanently ineligible", no mention of lifetimes. It's talked about as a lifetime ban but it isn't.
Pete was "Charley Hustle" fast. True, he did have 135 triples, which is a lot but adjusted for his total plate appearances doesn't look quite as impressive. He stole 198 bases (good) but was caught stealing 149 times (bad). What I remember about him was the violence of his base running not because of collisions but because he because he ran as if life itself depended on getting to the next base safely. Saying he approached baseball as Patton approached war seems an apt comparison.
Rose and Ryan are pretty similar. Both legendarily competitive hard-ass tough guys. Both were most amazing for their durability and for racking up one counting stat to a point that no one is going to touch in the foreseeable future. Both were, on the baseball field, obvious HOFers, and among the more exciting players of their time to watch, though they were not really among the very best, overall, at what they do (though they both had a couple of years when they were at least close to the best overall at what they did).
As with Shoeless Joe, Pete the player deserves entry. I wish baseball would reconsider both of them now that they are gone. Whatever penalty they deserved while alive, it should be considered served in full.
Pete made his own bed, and he chose to lie in it. That said, a little perspective that I like to share. I had a friend who worked in the NL's front office for a decade, for most of the 1970s. In that time he said there were two players who would do absolutely anything asked of them ... no matter how inconvenient, or how short the notice ... they would immediately say yes if they knew it was being asked to promote baseball. The two players were Pete Rose and Gary Carter.
I'm not sure if it's Dawson that coined the term, but Gary went by the nickname "Lights" in the Expos clubhouse. Hard-nosed, high energy player like Rose for sure, and he absolutely loved the spotlight, hence the nichname. He never saw a television camera he didn't like. And don't get me wrong, I love Gary.
Tim Raines was at a sports celebrity dinner a few years ago and he confirmed the legend. It seems that management was mulling who should get the Expos player of the year award, must have been 82 I'm guessing. Dawson went to management and told them to select Carter, that he would bask in that recognition.
I had the chance to meet Rose on a visit to Vegas some years back. He was, of course, in that sports memorabilia shop. I was wandering past, and "Hey, is that really Pete Rose in there?" I went in - no one other than his assistant and the shopkeeper were there - and after buying a photo to be autographed, got the chance to sit with him and chat for a moment. "Do you still follow baseball?" I asked. "Of course," he replied. A recent game saw Buster Posey (I recall) being hurt in a collision at the plate, to much controversy over "clean" and "dirty" hits. I asked Rose if he saw it, and what he thought. I got a quick and concise lesson on "fair" and "unfair" plate blocking, when you could try to knock a ball out of the catcher's glove, how to slide around a tag, etc.....
Observation from a layman: Pete Rose has this personality type, shared I think by Jimmy Connors and Michael Jordan. What makes them great is this uncontrollable competitive fire, this unhinged desire to compete, to win, to kick the other guy's ass by any means necessary. They step off the field, they retire, and they have no outlet for that motivation, and they can't turn it off. Rose turned to addictive gambling as a way to compete. Jordan also was a big gambler, of course, and he has seemed fairly unhappy and lost after he retired. Connors has also described his battles with addictive gambling. His personality is angry to the point of almost being a sociopath, and he has had a long marriage only because his wife seems to have accepted the fact that he's going to sleep with other women.
I get the sense that Tiger Woods and Tom Brady might have the same personality type, but they have managed to keep it from becoming toxic. Tiger blew his marriage, of course, but he still seems well liked and composed. Brady also lost his marriage because he couldn't walk away from the sport, but again, he hasn't self-immolated.
Let's not forget that Rose "turned to addictive gambling" as he was playing and continued as he was managing. It's not like he stopped being involved in baseball and then started gambling, though that's the way I read your comment. I'm sure you didin't mean it that way.
Every time I think of Pete Rose and how under other circumstances, his plaque would be at Cooperstown, I think of what a tragedy. A flawed individual who broke one of the major rules of baseball, don't bet on games, especially those your team is playing in. He was a baseball tragedy.
And a warning sign to that effect is displayed at the entry to every locker room. You walk past it every game. So, tragic for Pete. I would not vote for a PED user but every once in a while I think of Barry Bonds and weep. I think he was HOF worthy before he began using but that use likely distorted his career record. What a terrible thing he did to himself.
All the while MLB promotes and profits from gambling on the game. It's like having stadiums operate brothels "for the fan experience" but telling the players they can't have sex.
The ban policy made sense in 1989. Today it shows the pure hypocrisy of the league.
Also ... when baseball offers you reasonable conditions for reinstatement, listen with an open mind. Don't reject them out of hand and just keep asking to be let back in. But, you know, that's what he wanted. Everything on his own terms, never blinking. It's a shame, but he lived on his own terms.
Amazing article. Joe is the best sportswriter in the country, and he’s rarely if ever better than when writing about a complicated figure like Pete Rose.
Looking through the piece, I’ve noticed something about the writing. Joe tells the story about Pete Rose’s greatness, about Big Pete, about Charlie Hustle, the biographical/hagiographical details. Most of this is narrative or second-hand from respected sources (eg the Robinson and Aaron quotes).
And PETE tells the other story, the one of a narcissistic, hypocritical, obsessive, frankly pathetic person. That part of Rose shines through every bit as brightly as the other stuff, perhaps even more so. And Joe himself, in his role as narrator, says very little of it.
The piece is like the experience of reading the Wikipedia page of a famous person and then meeting that person in real life. And the way Joe intersperses the “Wikipedia page” with the conversational aspects (a standard journalistic technique, but one Joe does particularly well) gives me the distinct sensation of sitting at that restaurant trying to read a Rose biography. Every time I start to sink in to the biographical/inspirational part of the story, Rose himself walks over and reminds me of the man he most deeply was. By this point, we all know the story of Pete Rose the player and person, but the way Joe transports us in this piece is breathtaking.
One grammatical nitpick. I believe I’ve seen the same wording in a couple of articles, so maybe I’m missing something.
“he had a sexual relationship with a woman before she turned 16”
Shouldn’t this say “girl”, rather than “woman”? Which of course is the entire problem.
Whether the young person was 15 or 16 it was still a very bad thing that he did. As a father of two sons and no daughters I recall taking my oldest to junior high school (ages 13, 14 and 15 generally) and was shocked at how few of the males looked at all like men, almost none of them needing to shave even weekly or monthly, whereas a large number of the females looked like young women. Whatever Pete thought at the time, he did not do enough to check his assumption.
Nice piece, Joe. The only thing I'd add is what he said about Ichiro passing him up to become the all time hit king (between Japan and US): that Japan was the minor leagues and it didn't count. In every sense of the word, Rose was selfish and didn't even have the decency to congratulate Ichiro in that moment. He couldn't bring himself to because he was the Hit King and he couldn't let that go. To me, he's not even in the same class as Ichiro, who swung a bat the same way Van Gogh utilized his paint brush - a flourish of artistic beauty.
Matt, he had to say that because a few years earlier he had said something to the effect that you could give Ichiro his Japanese hits and he still wasn't catching Pete. Once he realized that wasn't true and Ichiro would pass him with those hits, he had to backtrack.
Not a horrible idea, but I would make this distinction. Bonds and Clemens broke a rule that did not carry a "death" sentence if caught. There would have been a suspension of fixed duration once baseball established that through the CBA. Pete broke a rule where the punishment was indefinite suspension with right to apply for reinstatement. He has not been reinstated. I like Bonds and Clemens chances better. The fell off the ballot last year but could still get voted in at some by Veterans Committee vote.
I understand, but again the difference is that the PED crowd is all HOF eligible. If not voted in by BBWAA there is still the Veterans Committee and I suspect they will be a little more forgiving than the BBWAA. Maybe not.
To be clear, I was reinforcing your point, not arguing with you. It will be remembered that A-Rod agreed to his suspension. Per CBP rules, that is the maximum penalty he could receive.
And I am not disagreeing with you in anyway. What was on my mind was that Commissioner for Worse or Worse Manfred grew tired of dealing with people trying to get him to restore Shoeless Joe Jackson so he would be eligible for HOF consideration. So he ruled that while suspended former players could petition for reinstatement, that right expired with their death. So until Commissioner I wish it were Manfred Mann is replaced, Pete has no path to induction. At least the English musician could use the excuse " I was Blinded by the Light" if he made a head shaking decision.
I remember something I read, decades ago, about Joe Jackson. I'm pretty sure it was in one of Bill James' annuals, but I won't die on that hill. The gist was that, after EVERY player, manager, coach, umpire, executive, owner, journalist, anyone else, who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame is in the Hall of Fame, then it would be time to include Jackson. I've always thought of Pete Rose in the same category as Joe.
A well balanced and thoughtful piece on Rose. It reminded me of something (probably the only thing) I learned in my college literature class: that a tragedy is generally the story of a hero or great man who is inevitably and irresistibly done in by an inherent personality flaw that makes his downfall inevitable.
By this standard, Rose's story is NOT a tragedy. He was without question one of the greatest players in history. But his downfall was not the result of an irresistible flaw in Rose's character, but rather a series of conscious decisions to disrespect the game. He was aware that players betting on games was an existential threat to the integrity the game. He never acknowledged and accepted moral responsibility for his actions, much less express genuine remorse. He spurned and publicly mocked efforts by Commissioners to provide a "glide path" for Rose to attain at least partial redemption.
I am agnostic as to whether Rose's accomplishments should be recognized in the Hall of Fame, as a historical reality. But if a plaque to Rose is to be installed in Cooperstown, that history should be complete. It should conclude with an epitaph along the lines of: "Pete Rose was one of the best hitters ever to play the game. He loved playing baseball. And craved recognition as King of Baseball. But he never appreciated or respected the institution of baseball, its history and traditions. He was a giant and champion on the field, but a disgrace to the game due to his actions off the field."
As always, the "Hit King" made more outs than any other baseball player ever, and it's not close.
Pete Rose was born on April 14, 1941, which was the opening day of the 1941 season. He passed away on September 30, 2024, which was the final (extended) day of the regular season. You might accurately say Rose was born, lived, and died with baseball. It was his life through and through. That is beautiful AND terrifically sad, and that was Pete Rose in so many ways.
Very nice comment
In a Curt Smith collection of broadcaster stories, Jon Miller says that at the Hall of Fame, the big thing for the Cooperstown people is the return of the inductees. And his guess was that a lot of inductees had made clear that if Rose went in, they were staying home. It occurred to me when I read it that for 20 years, Miller spent every Sunday night during the season with Joe Morgan, who later became a leading figure at the Hall. I suspect Morgan told him that, and that he heard it from the others.
so a close friend of mine posed this question: he had a lifetime ban - his life is now over. as such isn't his sentence complete? He paid his dues - now shouldn't he be eligible for and inducted in, the Baseball HOF?
It was for the lifetime of the universe. Actually it was "permanently ineligible", no mention of lifetimes. It's talked about as a lifetime ban but it isn't.
In discussing Rose's modest physical attributes, Joe says that he was not fast. However,
in his fantastic book, The Baseball 100, Joe says that the young Pete Rose was
"breathtakingly" fast evidenced by his 30 triples and 30 steals in the minors and his timed speed
running to first. He was also nicknamed "scooter" and described by a Reds officials as having
speed only a tick slower than Vada Pinson, then considered the fastest player in baseball.
Joe, was Rose fast or not particularly fast during the prime of his career? If he was
breathtakingly fast in the minors, he should not have lost most of it during the first half of his career.
He did not evidence it in his base stealing numbers the early part of his career.
Pete was "Charley Hustle" fast. True, he did have 135 triples, which is a lot but adjusted for his total plate appearances doesn't look quite as impressive. He stole 198 bases (good) but was caught stealing 149 times (bad). What I remember about him was the violence of his base running not because of collisions but because he because he ran as if life itself depended on getting to the next base safely. Saying he approached baseball as Patton approached war seems an apt comparison.
Rose and Ryan are pretty similar. Both legendarily competitive hard-ass tough guys. Both were most amazing for their durability and for racking up one counting stat to a point that no one is going to touch in the foreseeable future. Both were, on the baseball field, obvious HOFers, and among the more exciting players of their time to watch, though they were not really among the very best, overall, at what they do (though they both had a couple of years when they were at least close to the best overall at what they did).
By Gace...Hall of Famer Pete Rose and I don't give a shit to those who disagree...........
As with Shoeless Joe, Pete the player deserves entry. I wish baseball would reconsider both of them now that they are gone. Whatever penalty they deserved while alive, it should be considered served in full.
You seem nice.
Actually, it's not really an opinion to agree or disagree with. It's pretty black and white -- he's not a Hall of Famer.
Pete made his own bed, and he chose to lie in it. That said, a little perspective that I like to share. I had a friend who worked in the NL's front office for a decade, for most of the 1970s. In that time he said there were two players who would do absolutely anything asked of them ... no matter how inconvenient, or how short the notice ... they would immediately say yes if they knew it was being asked to promote baseball. The two players were Pete Rose and Gary Carter.
I'm not sure if it's Dawson that coined the term, but Gary went by the nickname "Lights" in the Expos clubhouse. Hard-nosed, high energy player like Rose for sure, and he absolutely loved the spotlight, hence the nichname. He never saw a television camera he didn't like. And don't get me wrong, I love Gary.
Tim Raines was at a sports celebrity dinner a few years ago and he confirmed the legend. It seems that management was mulling who should get the Expos player of the year award, must have been 82 I'm guessing. Dawson went to management and told them to select Carter, that he would bask in that recognition.
WoW, interesting comment!
I had the chance to meet Rose on a visit to Vegas some years back. He was, of course, in that sports memorabilia shop. I was wandering past, and "Hey, is that really Pete Rose in there?" I went in - no one other than his assistant and the shopkeeper were there - and after buying a photo to be autographed, got the chance to sit with him and chat for a moment. "Do you still follow baseball?" I asked. "Of course," he replied. A recent game saw Buster Posey (I recall) being hurt in a collision at the plate, to much controversy over "clean" and "dirty" hits. I asked Rose if he saw it, and what he thought. I got a quick and concise lesson on "fair" and "unfair" plate blocking, when you could try to knock a ball out of the catcher's glove, how to slide around a tag, etc.....
Observation from a layman: Pete Rose has this personality type, shared I think by Jimmy Connors and Michael Jordan. What makes them great is this uncontrollable competitive fire, this unhinged desire to compete, to win, to kick the other guy's ass by any means necessary. They step off the field, they retire, and they have no outlet for that motivation, and they can't turn it off. Rose turned to addictive gambling as a way to compete. Jordan also was a big gambler, of course, and he has seemed fairly unhappy and lost after he retired. Connors has also described his battles with addictive gambling. His personality is angry to the point of almost being a sociopath, and he has had a long marriage only because his wife seems to have accepted the fact that he's going to sleep with other women.
I get the sense that Tiger Woods and Tom Brady might have the same personality type, but they have managed to keep it from becoming toxic. Tiger blew his marriage, of course, but he still seems well liked and composed. Brady also lost his marriage because he couldn't walk away from the sport, but again, he hasn't self-immolated.
Let's not forget that Rose "turned to addictive gambling" as he was playing and continued as he was managing. It's not like he stopped being involved in baseball and then started gambling, though that's the way I read your comment. I'm sure you didin't mean it that way.
Jordan is still a big gambler, but he now bets on himself in high stakes golf matches
Every time I think of Pete Rose and how under other circumstances, his plaque would be at Cooperstown, I think of what a tragedy. A flawed individual who broke one of the major rules of baseball, don't bet on games, especially those your team is playing in. He was a baseball tragedy.
And a warning sign to that effect is displayed at the entry to every locker room. You walk past it every game. So, tragic for Pete. I would not vote for a PED user but every once in a while I think of Barry Bonds and weep. I think he was HOF worthy before he began using but that use likely distorted his career record. What a terrible thing he did to himself.
Not one of the major rules of baseball, THE major rule of baseball.
All the while MLB promotes and profits from gambling on the game. It's like having stadiums operate brothels "for the fan experience" but telling the players they can't have sex.
The ban policy made sense in 1989. Today it shows the pure hypocrisy of the league.
Also ... when baseball offers you reasonable conditions for reinstatement, listen with an open mind. Don't reject them out of hand and just keep asking to be let back in. But, you know, that's what he wanted. Everything on his own terms, never blinking. It's a shame, but he lived on his own terms.
If he could compromise, he wouldn't have been Pete Rose.
Amazing article. Joe is the best sportswriter in the country, and he’s rarely if ever better than when writing about a complicated figure like Pete Rose.
Looking through the piece, I’ve noticed something about the writing. Joe tells the story about Pete Rose’s greatness, about Big Pete, about Charlie Hustle, the biographical/hagiographical details. Most of this is narrative or second-hand from respected sources (eg the Robinson and Aaron quotes).
And PETE tells the other story, the one of a narcissistic, hypocritical, obsessive, frankly pathetic person. That part of Rose shines through every bit as brightly as the other stuff, perhaps even more so. And Joe himself, in his role as narrator, says very little of it.
The piece is like the experience of reading the Wikipedia page of a famous person and then meeting that person in real life. And the way Joe intersperses the “Wikipedia page” with the conversational aspects (a standard journalistic technique, but one Joe does particularly well) gives me the distinct sensation of sitting at that restaurant trying to read a Rose biography. Every time I start to sink in to the biographical/inspirational part of the story, Rose himself walks over and reminds me of the man he most deeply was. By this point, we all know the story of Pete Rose the player and person, but the way Joe transports us in this piece is breathtaking.
One grammatical nitpick. I believe I’ve seen the same wording in a couple of articles, so maybe I’m missing something.
“he had a sexual relationship with a woman before she turned 16”
Shouldn’t this say “girl”, rather than “woman”? Which of course is the entire problem.
Whether the young person was 15 or 16 it was still a very bad thing that he did. As a father of two sons and no daughters I recall taking my oldest to junior high school (ages 13, 14 and 15 generally) and was shocked at how few of the males looked at all like men, almost none of them needing to shave even weekly or monthly, whereas a large number of the females looked like young women. Whatever Pete thought at the time, he did not do enough to check his assumption.
Yes, very much agree
Also allows Joe to avoid saying the negative stuff himself
Nice piece, Joe. The only thing I'd add is what he said about Ichiro passing him up to become the all time hit king (between Japan and US): that Japan was the minor leagues and it didn't count. In every sense of the word, Rose was selfish and didn't even have the decency to congratulate Ichiro in that moment. He couldn't bring himself to because he was the Hit King and he couldn't let that go. To me, he's not even in the same class as Ichiro, who swung a bat the same way Van Gogh utilized his paint brush - a flourish of artistic beauty.
Matt, he had to say that because a few years earlier he had said something to the effect that you could give Ichiro his Japanese hits and he still wasn't catching Pete. Once he realized that wasn't true and Ichiro would pass him with those hits, he had to backtrack.
If Pete goes in the Hall, it should only be after Bonds and Clemens are inducted.
Not a horrible idea, but I would make this distinction. Bonds and Clemens broke a rule that did not carry a "death" sentence if caught. There would have been a suspension of fixed duration once baseball established that through the CBA. Pete broke a rule where the punishment was indefinite suspension with right to apply for reinstatement. He has not been reinstated. I like Bonds and Clemens chances better. The fell off the ballot last year but could still get voted in at some by Veterans Committee vote.
A-Rod in fact served the requisite suspension and is still not getting in via the BBWAA.
I understand, but again the difference is that the PED crowd is all HOF eligible. If not voted in by BBWAA there is still the Veterans Committee and I suspect they will be a little more forgiving than the BBWAA. Maybe not.
To be clear, I was reinforcing your point, not arguing with you. It will be remembered that A-Rod agreed to his suspension. Per CBP rules, that is the maximum penalty he could receive.
And I am not disagreeing with you in anyway. What was on my mind was that Commissioner for Worse or Worse Manfred grew tired of dealing with people trying to get him to restore Shoeless Joe Jackson so he would be eligible for HOF consideration. So he ruled that while suspended former players could petition for reinstatement, that right expired with their death. So until Commissioner I wish it were Manfred Mann is replaced, Pete has no path to induction. At least the English musician could use the excuse " I was Blinded by the Light" if he made a head shaking decision.