Loading ...When I think of old-timers in baseball, I don’t always think of my childhood….I think before those days, but now that I’m approaching, uh, five decades of life, I suppose I need to keep in mind that the players of my youth are old-timers now, too.
I was (am) an unapologetic Pete Rose fan. I give 110% to everything that I do, and when I played baseball I, being of mediocre ability, tried to work every angle to win the game just as I knew Pete Rose would do. I challenged the defense and even slid on blacktop pavement to avoid being out in kickball games, much to my mother’s chagrin (thank goodness for “toughskin” bluejeans back then). I still do.
However, under current baseball rules, I do not believe he belongs in Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Now, I do think the rules need to be changed, but, the rules being what they are, the regulations disallow Rose’s induction. I think the ban from Reds ceremonies and other such things cheat the fans now more than hurt Rose, but be that as it may, he may be have been the most praised and highly regarded player of the 1970’s, like him or not.
Now, it may surprise many of you that the “sabermetric” community (the baseball “geeks” who do stats analysis) don’t really appreciate Rose’s accomplishments. Yes, he played too long (your judgment as to whether he or the Reds’ attendance figures are to blame…) which distorted many of his statistics. That is to say, his decline phase is very long which negatively distorts his rate stats, but he put some huge counting numbers.
The following is taken from Bill James’s book “The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract,” where Rose is listed as the 33rd greatest player of all time…out of about 16,000 player candidates (to let you know, Joe Morgan is rated 15th, Frank Robinson, 24th; Johnny Bench, 44th, Ken Griffey, Jr., 77th, Barry Larkin, 93rd). The book was written in 2001, before Rose made his public admission in 2004. I don’t know how, or if, this changed James’ feelings about Rose the player. But I can tell you that, for years, James did not write nice things about Rose as a player (at the end of his career). However, I do think James uses the paragraphs below to give a pretty balanced view of a way to evaluate Rose’s contributions as a baseball player.
“Let me write just a few paragraphs here for young readers, who don’t remember Pete Rose’s career. Pete Rose played the game differently than anyone else. When he drew a walk, he dashed to first base as if he were being chased by a leopard, as fast as he would run on a ground ball to short. He ran to his defensive position at the start of the inning; he ran full tilt back after the inning was over. He actually ran from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box; if he struck out he raced back to the dugout. If he had to back up another fielder, he backed him up at full speed, as if he fully expected that he would have to make a play. He was not blessed with great speed or strength or quickness or agility, but he was perhaps the most competitive player who ever lived. He hustled, from April first to the end of the season; he was called Charlie Hustle. He loved the game of baseball, he loved playing baseball for a living, and he made sure that it showed every day.
Sportswriters worshiped him. This was the guy, the one guy, who played the game the way it was supposed to be played, the human training film. More glowing, ecstatic prose was written about Pete Rose than about Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, John Elway, Mark McGwire, and Twinkie Teletubbie combined. When Pete Rose was discovered to have feet of clay, the sportswriters who had lionized him turned on him like a pack of vultures.
Now, I never particularly liked the Pete Rose show, and for a long time about the only thing I ever wrote about him was that he wasn’t as good as everybody said he was. But Pete Rose was never my hero, so his personal failings were never a source of pain to me. He is what he is. The man did get 4,256 hits in his career, more than a thousand of them for extra bases. He scored 2,165 runs, a staggering number, led the National League in hits seven times, in doubles five times, in runs scored four times. He drew more than 85 walks six times, won Gold Gloves as an outfielder, made the All-Star team at four positions, led the league in fielding percentage at three positions, led the league in outfield assists twice, won three batting titles, led the league twice in on-base percentage, had a 44-game hitting streak, had two streaks of 500 or more consecutive games played, and took six teams to the World Series.
Pete Rose had more extra base hits in his career than Mike Schmidt, Rogers Hornsby, Ernie Banks, Mickey Mantle, Al Simmons, Eddie Mathews, Willie McCovey, Harmon Killebrew, or Joe DiMaggio. The SABR (Society of American Baseball Researchers) poll had Pete Rose ranked below Roy Campanella. Pete Rose had almost as many extra base hits in his career as Campanella had hits. Which is better to start a pennant race with, a guy that you think might be the MVP, or a guy that you know is going to hustle every day and get 200 hits?”
Rose holds many baseball records and was among the league leaders in countless statistical categories. If you want, check out baseball-reference.com or wikipedia for lists and more specific achievements. Here’s a list of awards:
National League Rookie of the Year–1963
National League Most Valuable Player–1973
World Series MVP–1975
17 All-star selections
Three World Series championships–1975, 1976, 1980
Two Gold Glove Awards (as an outfielder)–1969 and 1970
Roberto Clemente Award–1975 (for character and charitable community contributions)
The Sporting News Player of the Year (1968)…during the year of the pitcher
The Sporting News Sportsman of the Year (1985)
The Sporting News Player of the Decade (1970’s)
For those who don’t know…the Sporting News was the pre-eminent sports publication of it’s time…and it’s time lasted over 100 years.
Why does this all matter? The question was asked the other day as to what advice to give to a new Reds fan…doesn’t it all kind of begin and stop right here?
Pete Rose was a very versatile player making the All Star team at four positions (2B, OF, 3B, 1B).
His playoff batting average was .321 in 60 games, which I think is pretty impressive.
Pete Rose hit .325 at age 40 during the strike shortened 81 season. It isn’t as unusual for guys to still play well in this chemically enhanced time at age 40, but I always found that season by Rose to be pretty impressive at that age.
The Reds were probably trying to save a couple of bucks and get younger by pushing both Rose and Tony Perez out the door, but both of them continued to play pretty well for a few more years after leaving Cinci. I never liked Dan Driessen and I think either Rose or Perez would have been a way better option at first in the 79-83 period.
Pete = Baseball. NO ONE else is even close.
Everything about the way he played is what I always taught my players when I was coaching. Earl’s comment is fitting: If Rose played in the steroid era, he would have had 5,000 hits, not just 4,256. Think about it: A man as driven as him with the love for the sport that he had? Come on, there’s no doubt that he’d have played until he was 50. NO DOUBT.
Oh, and I forgot to add the disclaimer that IF he would’ve roided out, he would’ve been closer to 5,000 hits.
But, of course, knowing Pete’s history with the pills (let alone the rest of his history), I have no doubt he would’ve taken part in it, and likely would’ve benefitted greatly as far as baseball production goes.
What people rarely mention with performance-enhancing-drugs is the most basic benefit that they bring: It’s not so much that they give you added strength, which is always the argument with Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, it’s that they MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER.
Playing a 162 game schedule would destroy most human beings. Cal Ripken Jr. is an absolute freak of humanity, and if he doesn’t live to be over 100, I’ll be amazed, but if you’re consistently taking pain-killing drugs, you are simply going to perform better on the field.
Baseball players have always taken “drugs” to get through the season. It was simply taken to the next level in the ’90s. And again, as much as I love Pete, I have no doubt he would have imbibed.
My point is: So the hell what? That does NOT stop him from being the most competitive player short of Ty Cobb to ever put on a uniform. Teach Pete the Player to your kids, not the person. It’s really that simple, and is also why the BB Hall of Fame is an absolute hypocritical joke.
I love the way he played the game, but it’s hard for me to separate Pete the baseball player from Pete the man. My son has become a big Reds fan and I’ll bet he knows nothing about Rose (please don’t call child protective services).
Oh, and one other thing…when I saw the headline for this thread, (“Remembering Pete Rose”) I thought maybe he had died. :emotion:
Don’t forget he made the All Century Team and they actually let him on the field for the ceremony, which was interrupted for three or four minutes due to the standing ovation of the crowd. And this wasn’t in Cincy.
I wish I had been able to see him play during the seventies.
I’m into sabermetrics, I (and probably lots of other kids of my generation) came up with OPS on my own at the age of 13 or so. But it does not capture everything (not that anyone claimed it does). Pete Rose is an outstanding illustration of that.
There is such a thing as clutch, you could see that when Pete was at bat in a big situation. (Bill James BTW said he’s reconsidering “clutch” in his 60 Minutes interview last week, and sabermetrics has always allowed that there are some clutch hitters, just not many.)
Sabermetrics cannot measure mental impact on the other players of a team – Pete Rose lit a fire under his teammates. There is such a thing as leadership, on the field and in the clubhouse. The current model for clutch and leadersip, Derek Jeter, is way overrated in those areas. Pete was the real deal.
Even at the age of 11, when he was a rookie, I could see this guy was way too into himself and didn’t like him as a person. He’s a pathological liar, etc.
But on the field, along with Bob Gibson, Robby, and his role model Ty Cobb, he’d do anything to win, he hungered to win, and I was so thrilled he was on our side.
Induct the guy into the Hall before he gets much older, please.
As far as what to tell a new fan, I’d start with what he did on the field, a long and great story. He was a failure as a manager (what happened in the collapse of 1987 ?) and got into trouble as a manager, I’d cover that.
As a person, he’s deeply flawed but has important redeeming qualities. For one thing, noone tells him how to think or what to say. The Reds took great pains (I’ll tell the story later, for those who don’t know) to stop him (as a rookie) from hanging with his buddies Robby and Vada, because in 1962 “classy” players didn’t do that. He figured out what was going on, and told the entire Reds organization, in effect, to F___ Off !
He does have (some) principles, and will not compromise them for anyone or anything.
Rose in – Clemens out, Bonds out, McGuire out, Sosa out, ARod out … only players who played the game honestly belong in the HofF.
One thing to keep in mind about Rose’s hitting stats is that he also that most of his career was in an ERA when pitching was dominant in the mid 60s to early 80s and ballparks were not the band boxes that they play in now.
Beyond the ‘roids, criminy how many extra homeruns do think Sosa, McGwire and Bonds got by playing games in these newer parks with weakened pitching by two expansions? The NL Central pretty much is all hitters parks, especially after the McGwire fix done to old Busch stadium. Heck Wrigley is probably near the more neutral of the bunch. Could you imagine what guys like Bench, Schmidt, George Foster would have done if they were playing so many games in places like this? Criminy Foster put up 52 in an expansion year playing bunches of games in the Astrodome, Dodger stadium and better pitching? I think that 52 in 77 probably is equivalent to hitting 70 in 98. I think the home run stadiums and 40 pitchers who would have been in AAA or lower in the bigs were probably as big a part of the hitting explosion as anything and probably don’t get as much credit.
The thing I think the ‘roids changed is that you started to see guys like Brady Anderson, Luis Gonzales and others out of nowhere cracking 50+ home runs. There were bunches of others that were one season wonders like that. Maybe the guy didn’t use, as I don’t remember his name coming up in allegations, but I also wonder about guys like Steve Finley who were better at age 37 than 27.
I think the guys out of this ERA that might come out the best are the ones that seemed to have a more normal career arc and suffered through tons of injuries like Junior Griffey, Frank Thomas and Jeff Bagwell. If they were using, it didn’t help them out, as they all seemed to spend lots of games on the DL.
Pete Rose hit for a bit of power in the early 70s, I would not doubt that in the 90s he would have put up some power numbers probably like someone like Nomar at his peak.
That being said, I think Pete Rose is a pretty nuts. It seems from some of the stuff how he was living off the field, that the dude kind of lived at that pedal to the metal life off the field. Rose isn’t the only ball player sadly to get torn up by gambling, but he is the only one stupid enough to get tied into betting on his own sport. Rose has definitely not been his best advocate for getting the ban on the hall lifted, but if anything the steroids era might open a window. I think it would help if some of the vets might come to his defense, kind of like what Vince Lombardi was able to do for Paul Hornung in a similar situation (which didn’t stop him from getting into the NFL hall of fame or getting back into football for that matter), but I think there is a lot of animosity about Rose from guys who hated playing against him.
How dare you overrate Derek Jeter and his calm eyes.
I am as tired of hearing about Pete Rose as many Reds fans are of Adam Dunn. Honestly, if I never heard another word about him, it would be fine with me.
My argument with Steve’s post is that I believe he does belong in the HOF b/c of what he did as a player. I think it should be viewed as two different careers..one as a player, one as a manager and I’ve heard no taint on his qualifications for the HOF based simply on his playing career.
That said, I don’t think he should (or will, for that matter) ever be allowed to coach or manage in organized baseball.
Sorry Kurt, I stand corrected. Those calm eyes of Jeter’s help him get a lot of hot dates, I guess I’m just jealous.
I’m not sure about your lack of appreciation claim regarding sabermetricians. For example, Rose ranks 15th among position players in WAR in the retrosheet years (http://www.baseballprojection.com/war/top300.htm). Names ahead: Bonds, Mays, Aaron, Henderson, Schmidt, Robinson, Morgan, Mantle, Rodriguez, Yaz, Boggs, Ripken, Kaline, & Brett.
Some names below: Clemente, Junior, Yount, Gwynn, Jackson, Larkin, Bench…
That seems about right to me. He was a very good player for a long time. Greatest player? No. But very good, with some MVP-caliber seasons sprinkled here and there (‘73 was his best by WAR, which is nice to see).
I’m not a fan of his, but that’s mostly because I think he’s a turd.
-j
I don’t think there’s any question that Pete Rose the player belongs in the Hall of Fame, but the biggest debate should be over whether Pete Rose the man deserves to witness his induction. Once the man has passed, I would imagine that it might be easier to accept that what the player did on the field for more than two decades should be officially recognized by Baseball.
Also, none of us should be so naïve as to think Cal Ripken Jr. wouldn’t have used steroids to keep his streak alive.
I thought I’d make a list of players that Reds’ fans wanted to see driven off the team over the years, or no longer wanted to see mentioned:
1) Pete Rose
Joe Nuxhall
2) Adam Dunn
3) Frank Robinson
4) Barry Larkin
5) Ken Griffey, Jr.
6) Danny Graves
7) Bobby Tolan
9) Hal Chase
10) Eric Milton
I checked our archives and I saw where Cesar Hernandez and Jimmy Anderson were listd, but they weren’t here long enough to really count.
I understand Milton….frankly, I’d compare his signing to that of Willy Taveras, but Taveras hasn’t floundered yet.
Chase you may not know…he was a fantastic first baseman from the 1910’s whom Reds manager Christy Mathewson kicked off the 1918 team for throwing Reds games…I’ll give more information about him in a later story…there’s plenty to read about him if you want to find it
Nuxhall was a fan favorite in the 50’s…then went 1-8 with a 4.42 ERA and the fans booed him incessantly, so bad the Reds traded him away. For all the years he was with the Reds organization, he wasn’t with them for the 1961 championship team and World Series. He came back in the 1962 season.
As for the other guys, they were all stars who wore out their welcomes for various reasons.
Seems like it’s tough being a star in Reds country? We seem to like the Adam Rosaleses of the world…
May be there’s a whole story of hard luck things to write aboutconcering these guys? Like, what made the public turn on them?
Please note: I’m writing this as a Pete Rose fan (since 1970 at age 7). I’ve been regularly disappointed in Charlie Hustle since 1989.
Before 1989, Pete Rose had the praise MLB, many fans, and sportswriters covering the Game. Pete Rose WAS the Cincinnati Reds and a top-notch Ambassador to MLB at the time.
The gambling, of course, stopped that, followed by 14 years of lies, and Rose’s “Prison without Bars” – the title of his 2004 book, as well as a prison HE built. Charlie Hustle was, simply put, AWESOME when he got on the field, and did what was needed to Win. Unfortunately, Mr. Rose poisoned himself OFF the field, and after his playing days.
MLB, and the Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF) created the “Pete Rose Rule,” which was designed to keep all former MLB Ballplayers banned from the game OUT of the HOF. They deny this, but even the “holier-than-thou-sportswriters” generally know the fix was on to keep Pete Rose out of the HOF.
That being the case, Pete Rose is the same as he was 20 years ago, or so he seems – Arrogant and led by his Ego. I would love to have seen Mr. Rose become more of a Cal Ripken-Derek Jeter-Henry Aaron-type celebrity…one who won’t create negative publicity. Mr. Rose needs to rise above the level of the “I’m a victim, and I want to manage again” nonsense.
I mean, Come On! Pete LOST the trust to manage ever again (1989) – frankly, he doesn’t deserve a 2nd shot there. I would love to see Rose reinstated back into MLB (before he dies, can’t walk anymore, Etc.), work with Minor Leagers, young players, fans, Etc., but that means letting go of the goals HE ruined.
No matter how much Charlie Hustle complains about the bad treatment, Bud Selig’s ignoring him, Bob Feller and Hank Aaron’s opposition to him being in the HOF, and more…the only person to blame for Pete Rose’s predicament is…PETE ROSE.
By the way, I MISS seeing Charlie Hustle in MLB, as does many fans. I doubt he’ll be reinstated back in MLB, with a shot at the HOF until he’s dead or near-death.
Steve Price – Respectfully, unless you’re talking about a lot of Reds fans who have NO idea of the great career of Pete Rose, the player, I see NO logic in your rating him as #1, or even in the top 20 ranked players that Reds’ fans wanted to see driven off the team over the years, or no longer wanted to see mentioned. Your mention of Rose makes NO sense to me at all, but I started following the Reds during the beginning of the Big Red Machine years (1970).