A boy, baseball and Pete Rose

One man, more than any other, defined my childhood. 

It wasn’t my father. It wasn’t an uncle. It wasn’t a teacher. 

It was someone I never met: Pete Rose. 

That I never saw him play, that I never showed him my Pete Rose scrapbook, that I never took the time to let him know I thought he was the greatest, is a regret. Pete Rose died recently at the age of 83.  

When I heard of his death, my wife and I were in Ireland. The news was suddenly there, on the screen of my phone. “Agent says Pete Rose has died.” I didn’t know what to say about it, so I didn’t say anything. Inside, something hurt.

I will say, now, Pete Rose was my hero. I worshipped him through my boyhood. I don’t know exactly when I became obsessed with the Cincinnati Reds and Pete Rose. Maybe when I was about 8 or 9 years old and growing up in Seattle. 

But I do know I followed his every game. Each summer morning I would rush to get the newspaper and read the Reds’ box score. Just give me the sports section, I would tell my dad. Two hits from Rose were good. Three were great. Four were cause for a fist pump. An 0-for-4 hurt like a punch in the stomach.

I tried to become a switch-hitter like Pete, but the problem was, I couldn’t hit from either side of the plate. 

I tried to slide headfirst like Pete, but more or less kind of crumpled into a clump and came up well short of the base. Out. 

Like Pete, I played left field, right field, second base and third base. Fielding, though, was another weakness, and I held my breath when the ball came my way. Clank, off my glove.

But I could hustle like Pete, nicknamed “Charlie Hustle,” so I did. I ran as fast as I could after a walk. I chased after the ball with gusto. I hollered from the dugout. Unfortunately, hustle did not make me a better hitter and it doesn’t do much good when you’re on the bench, where I was usually found all through Little League. 

Still, I lived and died with Rose and the Reds. For years, they were more important to me than anything else. Nothing, not school, not my Seattle Times paper route, not my Bobby Fischer chess books, not being an altar boy at St. John’s Catholic Church, mattered more. 

I memorized his statistics. I can still tell you his best year, offensively, was 1969 when he had career highs in batting, .348, home runs, 16, and RBIs, 82. He also had 11 triples, 33 doubles, 218 hits and scored 120 runs. I recite those now without looking it up. 

When the Reds lost the 1970 World Series to the Baltimore Orioles I was crushed. When they lost a seven-game thriller to the Oakland A’s in the 1972 Series, I was heartbroken (Rose, by the way, homered on the first pitch from Catfish Hunter in Game Five, which they won). When the Reds somehow lost to the New York Mets in the 1973 playoffs, I was infuriated.

I wanted that championship as much as the men on the field.

But when the Reds beat the Red Sox in the 1975 World Series, the greatest fall classic ever, and Rose was the series Most Valuable Player after batting .370, I was delirious with joy. Rose and the Reds had done it! They were the best. The greatest. It was a highlight for me never to be reached again. 

A four-game sweep of the Yankees the following year was almost anticlimactic. I had been to the mountaintop.

Sadly, Rose left the Reds as a free agent for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1979. A four-year, $3.2 million contract, huge in those days. He was worth it. In 1980 the Phils won the World Series and Rose led the way. A final championship for Pete.

When he retired after 24 seasons in 1986, he had the record of 4,256 hits. It will never be broken. Someone could play 20 years, get 210 hits a year, and still not get there.  

Perhaps now that he is dead, they will let him in the Hall of Fame, where he belongs. 

I always thought, someday, I would meet Pete. I would fly to Las Vegas where he often signed autographs and have him sign that scrapbook I dedicated to his career. It is filled with photos, articles, box scores and magazine covers. I wanted to see his reaction to it, to see him smile and nod as he flipped the pages, so he could know what he meant to me. Maybe he would stop on a page, look at me, and say, “I remember that,” and we would share a conversation. Maybe even shake hands. For a minute, we would have been friends.

I waited too long. That will haunt me. 

But I will always have my memories of Pete Rose.  

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Bill Buley is assistant managing editor of The Press. He can be reached at bbuley@cdapress.com.