Pete Rose to be Inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame
It has to happen. John (on this blog) pointed it out. Pete Rose was banned for life from baseball because of gambling. It is alleged by some that Bart Giamatti had a side deal with Pete that he would let him back in within a year, but a few weeks later, Bart died. Faye Vincent…
It has to happen. John (on this blog) pointed it out. Pete Rose was banned for life from baseball because of gambling. It is alleged by some that Bart Giamatti had a side deal with Pete that he would let him back in within a year, but a few weeks later, Bart died. Faye Vincent, who took over after Giamatti’s death, was a literal person who would have none of that, so Pete Rose was never reinstated. But now.. things have changed: Pete Rose has died! His lifetime ban is over, and he should now be inducted into the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame. I think I will call my friend, the president of the HOF, Josh Rawitch. In the past, he was the Dodgers Communication Director. This photo (with Pete in a wheelchair) was taken the day before he died.
Included in the photo were Dave Conception, George Foster, Tony Perez, and Ken Griffey, Sr. Pete died the next day. I grew up near Cincinnati, Ohio. My father was a Reds and Bengals fan, and we usually went to six to ten baseball games a year. Pete Rose was the embodiment of what a baseball player was all about. I was not a fan of the man, but I had to admire how he played the game.
I live in a small community on the south side of Indianapolis, Indiana, in a little town called Mooresville (population 9,997). Actually, I live a half mile outside the city limits. Mooresville High School has a great baseball program, and Dave Rose, Pete’s brother, used to be an Assistant Coach. Let’s make it clear that I do not know the man. I have seen him, but we run in different circles. He was in the hospitality business as a chef at Pete’s Restaurants until they failed, as a Chef at the Brick Yard Crossing, and finally, as a cook at Pit Stop BBQ in Brownsburg. There isn’t much information as to whether Dave Rose is still alive. He would be almost 80 years old and does not coach anymore. He lived in Indianapolis (in the hood).
Greg Doyle, a local sportswriter, wrote about Dave Rose back in 2015. In part, he said:
He’s standing just inside the door of Pit Stop BBQ & Grill in Brownsburg, like he’s waiting for me. Only, he’s not. He has no idea that I’m coming, or even who I am. But he’s standing there, and this is opportunity knocking, so I decide to test David Rose.
— GREG DOYLE
It starts like this, one stranger to another. I ask: How are you?
Rose: “If I was any better, I’d have a twin.”
There it is. My opening. Instead of nodding and moving past to go eat, I pretend to give him the once-over.
You know, I tell David Rose, you look like somebody. Do you have a twin? You look familiar.
“Nope,” he says. “Maybe you’ve been here before.”
Nah. But you sure do look … ah, I tell him. I know who you look like.
There it is. Just tested David Rose, threw out the bait. Time for him to gobble it up and tell me who he is. Or at least, who somebody else is. Time for him to bask in the glow of his older brother, one of the most famous athletes of the 20th century.
David Rose doesn’t nibble. He just stares at me. He’s wondering why I’m here, what’s my angle, and too late I realize what just happened. I wasn’t testing Pete Rose’s younger brother.
Pete Rose’s brother was testing me.
David Rose tells me how it is, right up front. We slide into a booth after the lunch rush at the Pit Stop, where he’s been a cook since it opened a few years ago, and he volunteers that “people use me to get to Pete.”
He says it with no hard feelings. After 66 years David Rose knows what he knows. And what he knows, what he has learned about human nature, is that people will take until someone tells them no. Over the years David Rose learned how to say no.
Just a few minutes of Pete’s time. That’s all they want. Just one autograph or better yet, one autograph show. Or maybe he can speak at my golf event. He’s your brother. Ask him for me, huh?
David Rose can’t escape his brother, not that he wants to. He admires the guy. Loves him. Wishes Pete wouldn’t come to Indy just for an autograph show or to see LeBron James visit the Pacers. Wishes his brother would come to Indy to see him. But that’s life, and life has been good to David Rose.
The entire interview is HERE.
Reds principal owner and managing partner Bob Castellini said in a statement that Rose was “one of the fiercest competitors the game has ever seen” and added: “We must never forget what he accomplished.” It’s time for Pete Rose to enter the Hall of Fame now that his lifetime ban has been completed.
Longtime Reds teammate and Hall of Famer Johnny Bench posted his reaction to Rose’s death saying, “My heart is sad. I loved you Peter Edward. You made all of us better. No matter the life we led. No one can replace you.”
A 17-time All-Star, the switch-hitting Rose played on three World Series winners. He was the National League MVP in 1973 and World Series MVP two years later. He holds the major league record for games played (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890). He was the leadoff man for one of baseball’s most formidable lineups with the Reds’ championship teams of 1975 and 1976, featuring Hall of Famers Perez, Bench and Joe Morgan.
But no milestone approached his 4,256 hits, breaking his hero Ty Cobb’s 4,191 and signifying his excellence no matter the notoriety that followed. It was a total so extraordinary that you could average 200 hits for 20 years and still come up short. Rose’s secret was consistency and longevity. Over 24 seasons, all but six played entirely with the Reds, Rose had 200 hits or more 10 times, and more than 180 four other times. He batted .303 overall, even while switching from second base to outfield to third to first, and he led the league in hits seven times.
“Every summer, three things are going to happen,” Rose liked to say, “the grass is going to get green, the weather is going to get hot, and Pete Rose is going to get 200 hits and bat .300.” Rose didn’t drink or smoke but indulged himself in other ways. He cared openly about money, vowing to become the first singles hitter to make $100,000 a year and leaving the Reds for the Phillies after declaring free agency at the end of the 1978 season (Rose returned in 1984). He was a longtime womanizer whose two marriages ended in divorce and who acknowledged fathering a child out of wedlock. In 1990, he pleaded guilty to two charges of filing false income tax returns and served five months in prison, the prosecutor calling his sentencing ″a sad day for those young Americans to whom Pete Rose was an idol.″
I will never forget how Pete Rose played the game:
Johnny Bench spoke of him yesterday:
Pete Rose is gone. The ban has been lifted. He belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame, the lovable scoundrel that he is! In the Wall Street Journal today, Jason Gay wrote this:
Pete Rose predicted his own bittersweet ending.
“Would it be horrible if I died next week and they put me in the Hall of Fame next year?” he asked in the recent, rollicking documentary, “Charlie Hustle and the Matter of Pete Rose.”
“That’s happened to a lot of people,” Rose continued. “They forgive them when they die.”
Will they?
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Discussion (130)
Disagree, not disagreeable
Ok, I am going to shut this down. What started out as a good debate is degenerating into name calling and empty rhetoric.
I have found that when some people feel they are losing an argument, the loser resorts to slander.
Thanks for your civil comments.
Rose agreed to a permanent ban not a lifetime ban. Rose violated the no. 1 rule in baseball. Just because he has died doesn’t change that fact. If you let Rose in the HOF then the HOF needs to let Shoeless Joe Jackson into the HOF. Shoeless Joe has been dead lomger.
Great topic. Lots of passion. Nice diversion before the fun begins.
Asking for a friend.
Is Caffeine a Ped? If Manfred banned it?I’ll just let that hang.
Book em
The man was a pervert and a gambler. Betting while a player is plain ole WRONG. Banned permanently means FOREVER. I’m a lifelong Tigers fan. Any of them had done it ide feel the same about them. I love Cooperstown they are right.
Dodgers in 4
Phillies in 5
Yankees in 4
Tigers in 5
Dodgers in 7
Yankees in 5
Dodgers in 4
His ban was permanent, not lifetime. The league has to actually lift the ban before the BWAA will consider putting him on the ballot.
This is a subjective blog post with a misleading headline to make it sound like this is something that will automatically happen. Pure clickbait.
I’m a baseball fan. Not a person fan. People suck. I’m sure Mother Teresa had her moments. Since I am a fan, I want the greatest players bust put on a pedestal. Mark, I like your idea of the plaque. But it’s too late. It should already be on the wall, dusty.
As for the so called ped users. Seriously, ball players have been using peds since the Pleistocene era. The greatest players should be in. It matters little if we don’t like the person.
Book em
It’s beyond time. Both Rose and Shoeless Joe have paid their debts and should be enshrined in Cooperstown. Besides, MLB has no over the HOF. They just bully the HOF.
Oh, NOW they decide to let him in!
Where were you when he was still breathing?!
We all make mistakes. “Judge not least ye be judged ” He was one of baseballs greatest players. Put him in the HOF!
Yamamoto named game one starter which would make him available for a potential game 5 on his 6 day regular rest, and Flaherty also available on 5 days rest in a “ all hands on deck” scenario.
These two are going to have to be at the top of their games if the Dodgers are going to prevail.
Both the Padres and Phillies have much stronger Starting Pitching and you know what they say about good pitching…….
Where you get all these new Posters from?
PR has been good PR for you!!!!
PETE ROSE PLAYED BASEBALL THE WAY WE ALL SHOULD PLAY THE GAME OF LIFE. Charlie Hustle deserved to be in well before his sudden demise. The hurt imposed on him by his veering off the path society set at that time became excessive. Pete Rose was a true champion. ⚾️
Let Pete in !
Best baseball team out there is the one and only CI NCINNATI. REDS
MLB has no say in who get the the HOF.
This is WRONG!!! Why now!? This is EVERYTHING HE’S EVER WANTED and they denied him that right!! Now that he’s gone… do they feel guilty about their decision… Such Hypocrisy!!!
Pete Rose embodied what it meant to be not only a professional baseball player, but a professional player in any sport. He was my idol growing up and all of my friends who played baseball and made us better players for it. I am saddened like all who loved watching him play. As a lover of the game, the Hall of Fame is about the best players of the game with all the stats! Hands-down, Pete Rose is the most deserved baseball player in the history of the game. I wish he would have been inducted to partake in all his accomplishments while his was alive. “We will miss you Mr. Pete Rose!
Having been a classmate of Pete Rose at Western Hills HS, class of 1960, I have followed Pete for years and his style hasn’t changed…drive to win at almost any cost. As a halfback(#55) on our football team at WHHS, Pete was almost unstoppable. On one play, as I recall, Pete was grabbed by every member of the opponent’s defense and they could not stop him. Pete’s professional baseball stats are historic and his drive and these accomplishments must be known to young players so that they can improve their game. And the young players also need to know Pete made a big mistake and he paid mightily for it…we all make mistakes….none of us should be eligible to “cast the first stone” against another person. Pete’s on field accomplishments should be recognized by the HOF and his gambling mistakes should be a side note. If Pete has taught us anything, it is that if we try harder, we can accomplish much more than we thought we could…that has survival value.
There’s a sign in every locker room in Major league baseball, it says ” there will be no betting on baseball” Pete Rose should NEVER be invited into the Hall of Fame
I am going to bed. I have to approve each new comment, so if you post tonight, I will not moderate it until tomorrow morning. I have not censured any as yet, as you guys and gals have been respectful (for the most part).
He should be in hof other players did worse like drugs give the guy a break i saw him play and he gave it his all every game
Pete rose was wrong for betting on the game but it still does not take away his artistry and skill as a baseball player when summertime came you looked forward to baseball time and Pete rose playing I am a cardinal fan but I still loved to watch Pete rose it’s just a shame he had to die to get in the hall of fame he should have been elected before now he did a lot for the game and that is what he should be honored for
There are lots of strong opinions. Both Ways! I would purpose that his plaque says something like this:
Pete Rose aka/Charlie Hustle
He is the All-Time Hit Leader in Baseball and played the game with hustle and ferocity seldom seen. As a player he was one of the best the game has ever seen, but after he retired as a player, he violated a sacred trust and was banned from baseball due to gambling on the game. He was banned until after his death as a tribute to the high standards baseball holds it’s icons. He is only here now because we cannot erase history and he is part of the fabric of baseball.
Let this be a lesson to everyone
So you can cheat, by betting on your own team while your the Manager, and cheat by betting on you’re team as a player,
And get put in the HOF as a cheater!
Totally disgusting