Pete Rose, known for his on-field grit and gambling, has died at the age of 83. (AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy, File)
ATLANTA — How on earth should we remember Pete Rose?
Rose, who died Monday at the age of 83, is remembered as “Charlie Hustle,” the grittiest, most hard-nosed ballplayer in baseball history and the man who achieved the most hits in baseball history through sheer force of will. Maybe? Do we remember him as an unrepentant gambler, a man who undermined the integrity of himself and his sport by betting on his own team, and who rejected all efforts at redemption? Do we remember him as a Neanderthal throwback, a brutal man accused of crimes far worse than baseball gambling? Each part is essential to understanding the big picture of Pete Rose’s life, its glory and tragedy and farce.
It is understandable that when a famous person dies, there is a tendency to remember him in the best way and not speak ill of him. But Rose’s best and worst moments were two sides of the same coin. It is impossible to accurately tell Rose’s story without delving into Rose’s illness. Yes, his style of play was electric, even transcendent, and his single-minded pursuit of Ty Cobb’s career hitting record was a thrilling display of willpower all season long.
But we can’t stop there. You can’t praise his grit and ignore everything else. These include repeated, intentional and widespread violations of baseball’s golden rule, the ban on gambling. Just because baseball, like every other sport, has given up the moral high ground for gambling by going in line with sportsbooks, doesn’t shake off Rose’s guilt. (No matter what fans do in the stands, players cannot gamble. There are no exceptions or gray areas.)
Rose was banned in 1989 and went on to try classic bad guy tricks for more than 30 years — I didn’t do it…OK, I did it and it wasn’t that bad…okay, yeah I’m sorry, but other people have done much worse. He spent years denying, then rationalizing, then comparing his scandal to that of PED users and sign stealers. No effort worked because no effort felt authentic.
Rose never seemed to realize how much she was infuriating people by showing no remorse. Or, let’s be honest, this is more likely, but maybe he just enjoyed upsetting the bespectacled baseball executive types. He certainly wondered, how could players who had never swung a bat since Little League and never had their precious tweed jackets dirty criticize Charlie’s (expletive) hustle remarks? Can it be done?
That’s because, unlike Rose, they recognized that baseball has higher standards than just “winning.” The commissioner who banned Rose from competing in 1989 was former Harvard professor and president A. Bartlett Giamatti. In other words, he was the absolute antithesis of the dirty, gritty, blue-collar world. Rose in a Reds uniform. Although Giamatti did not have the power to force Rose to confess, he did have the power to excommunicate Charlie Hussle.
In the intervening years after his ban, with each new commissioner and new baseball scandal, Rose begged, advocated, and cajoled his return to baseball, with the ultimate goal of making the Hall of Fame. All efforts failed, and Mr. Rose responded by continuing to sign autographs year after year as others were enshrined outside the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. If that sounds like a sad, pathetic attempt to grab a shard of reflected glory, well… you’re absolutely right.
Pete Rose tips a hat to a fan at the 2022 Phillies reunion. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
Rumors of Rose’s death began to circulate just as the Braves and Mets finished a bizarre and glorious playoff seeding doubleheader in Atlanta. Both teams squirted champagne and smoked cigars in plastic-wrapped locker rooms as both teams clinched postseason berths. This is the same type of locker room that has been posted across the country for decades with signs proclaiming that gambling is a prohibited activity. Again, there is no gray area.
The entertaining game between the Mets and the Braves is a very real depiction of one of the most tragic elements of the Rose story. The man denied himself the opportunity to rejoin the game he loved, the game that uplifted him, the game that elevated and glorified him. He had every opportunity to stop rationalizing, stop babbling, stop lying and exaggerating and trivializing. he didn’t.
Rose, the player, likes games like Monday’s, where neither team conceded defeat and both teams summoned something deep within themselves to continue fighting for victory. Rose, the gambler, probably bet some Benjamins on the Mets winning Game 1 and then losing Game 2. And the victim, Rose, would probably have found a way to get through the day with the injustice that had befallen her.
Rose’s playing accomplishments are worthy of induction into the Hall of Fame. But so are his crimes against the game he loved. Baseball fans of future generations will not have memories of Rose during his playing days, nor will they have the same aversion to gambling, but both the man’s electrifying talent and his self-inflicted destructive spiral remain. need to understand. His stories, all of his stories, are essential to understanding the game of baseball, which tests and reveals character.
Pete Rose is no more. He will never have a chance to set the record straight. And considering he’s been given every opportunity to clear his name, that’s probably going to work out for him wherever he is.
