With the opening of baseball's regular season staring us directly in the face (but yet hidden behind the NCAA basketball tournament, and the end of the respective NHL and NBA seasons), perhaps the most significant storyline is that of Barry Bonds closing in on home run number 755, as he is only 22 juice shots away from making some deliciously tainted history.
Wait, hold on a second...
That's right. I already did a preseason Barry Bash-fest of a column on this site last year, when I mistakenly believed it was then or never for the weak-kneed slugger, who at the time needed a much more imposing 47 shots to break poor old Henry Aaron's record, and probably his heart, as well. Now as Bonds is well on his way to returning to San Fran for another year, breaking Hank Aaron's home run record is all but a morbidly depressing inevitability. I guess it's time to find something else to rant about then.
Thankfully, the game of baseball has plenty more knuckleheads where that came from. Let's move on from the juice-headed Bonds to another character as prickly as the disorganized, short orange spikes growing out from his degenerate mind. I'm talking of course about Peter Edward Rose, Sr. The all-time hit king who hustled his way into the hearts of his fans as a player and then, as the infamous Dowd Report and ESPN movies have so documented, hustled his way out of the game as a manager who treated the game like a grand old racetrack.
Recently, Rose has resurfaced once again on the Dan Patrick Show, making a claim about whether or not and how frequently he bet on his own Cincinnati teams, aside from simply betting on baseball in general. "I bet on my team every night. I didn't bet on my team four nights a week ... I bet on my team to win every night because I love my team, I believe in my team. I did everything in my power every night to win that game."
To the surprise of no one, the Dowd Report found Rose's words to be stretching the truth once again. As Dowd recently told ESPN's "Cold Pizza" crew, Rose may not have bet on his team to win every night. In fact, the hit king's distrust with starting pitchers Mario Soto and Bill Gullickson showed in the fact that in 1987, Rose never bet on Reds games in which they pitched. Once again, Pete's words are at odds with the report that has repeatedly brought him to his knees. There should be no question as to whom you believe anymore.
For many years, I wanted to believe Pete when I saw all the video clips from various years of Rose candidly, comfortably telling all kinds of cameras in all kinds of settings the same message: I did not bet on baseball. How do you tell a lie for 15 years running and live with yourself?
And so every year when the debate came up about Rose for the Hall of Fame, the answer was a no-brainer for me. Absolutely. He's the hit king. He's Charlie Hustle. Look at him on the old grainy film clips. Look at him sliding into third, look at him run through Ray Fosse, look at him sprint to first after ball four. And damnit, look at the great mountain of numbers he amassed. Plenty of big leaguers have done worse than what he's done, and he only gambled after his playing career ended. He has to be in the Hall or it loses credibility.
But today, there is no more sympathy from me. Rose has proven again and again too bitter, too delusional, and too morally questionable to deserve inclusion. Again, many have done far worse, but with Rose breaking baseball's golden rule, he has shown extreme carelessness with his available lifelines time after time.
Over a 24-year playing career, Pete Rose amassed 4,256 hits in the major leagues. I'd be surprised if that number was higher than the total number of bets he placed on Major League Baseball contests. With each passing lie Rose tells, the evidence of the Dowd Report rings more and more true. Keep in mind that report is 225 pages, all filled with evidence and testimony of questionable, compromising, and illegal activities against Pete Rose. How's that for a mountain of numbers?
Perhaps the most humorous running gag of the Rose soap opera is the fact that Pete has repeatedly claimed that he would be baseball's greatest ambassador had they allowed him to remain involved in the game. This is a man who has spent time in an actual prison with bars as well as without. He is unable to control any and all gambling impulses as his own book describes, and is never above making a quick buck regardless of how it undermines the game, as the timing of his book's release famously revealed. Yes, I'm sure old men and young children the world over would be thrilled to see Pete Rose today, knowing everything they know about him now, and tell themselves that he represents all that is good about the game.
And yet after all this, he's back to lying again. Throwing one more log on this fire that consumes him, both inside and out. Rose also mentioned on his recent appearance on the Dan Patrick Show that he has quit worrying about whether or not he would ever be inducted into Cooperstown. It's a good thing you say that, Pete, because we have, too.
Leave a Comment