Pete Rose turns 72 today. I am going to choose to write about Pete Rose the baseball player today and not Pete Rose the man. I just made a post on a series I am doing on the greatest athletes to wear different uniform numbers. Today was Roberto Clemente who was even greatest a man than he was a baseball player. Pete Rose is not such a man. As a human being he’s pretty disgusting.He is an ugly person and I am not talking physically. I will just leave it at that as far as the negative.

Pete Rose as a baseball player. A Willie Mays, a Mickey Mantle or more recently a Junior Griffey were examples of players who were 5 tool players. They could do it all- hit for average, hit for power, great fielder, great throwing arm and great speed. Pete Rose was a one tool player. He could hit for great average. He had little power, he was an adequate fielder in the outfield, he didn’t have a great arm or great speed. There are players you look at and the first thing that comes to mind is- they didn’t get the most out of the talent they had. Pete Rose is not in that group. Pete Rose got every ounce of productivity out of the talent he had. When you look at his career stats its not like say a Darryl Strawberry- I look at his numbers and think- that’s all? He had the ability to hit 500-600 home runs and have a much greater career. Pete Rose you look at those stats and he couldn’t have done better than he did.

I grew up a Pirates fan and I hated the Reds. The Reds had great players in the 1970’s and Pete Rose got a lot of attention. I was once talking to a couple people I know and one was a bigger fan than the other. They were both much older than I was so I asked “Who was the greatest player you ever saw? The casual fan replied Pete Rose.  Well Pete Rose wasn’t even the best player on those Red teams. Johnny Bench was a great player, greater than Rose and the best player on those Big Red Machine teams was Joe Morgan. Joe Morgan was the engine that made the machine go.

Pete Rose started out as a second baseman, was moved to right field, then left field, then when they needed to have room for a young slugger named George Foster, Rose volunteered to move to move to a position he never had played- third base. Rose was in his mid-30’s at this point. Later Rose moved to first base. Pete Rose as a ballplayer would do anything to help his team win a ballgame. I remember being frustrated when Al Oliver on my Pirates would complain about being moved back and forth from first base to the outfield. {I have never seen anyone in all my years in baseball hit the ball harder than Al Oliver. Everything Al Oliver hit was a line drive.} If they had said we need a catcher Rose would have stepped up and said he would do it. I would boo Pete Rose when he came to Pittsburgh like everyone else but in the late 1970’s when Pete was a free-agent and the Pirates were trying to get him I was really hoping they would. Pete Rose was the kind of player you wanted on your team. I wish he had signed with the Pirates. Pete Rose played all those different positions by the way and was an All-Star at all 5ive of those positions.

There are people who always have criticized Rose for the 1970 All-Star Game ending when he crashed into Ray Fosse- winning the game for the National League but basically ruining a promising career for Fosse. Well that is how Pete Rose played. If Pete had never made the majors I could have seen him playing in Cincinnati in some adult league and he would have done the same thing had he been playing for nothing. Pete Rose did everything all out on the baseball field. The guy ran to first when he was walked. It was the great Yankee pitcher Whitey Ford who gave Pete his great nickname- Charlie Hustle. In an exhibition game Pete was sprinting to first after walking and Ford came up with the nickname.

Pete Rose is the all-time hit leader with 4256. He was obsessed with getting that record. It would help that at the end of his career he was a player-manager and could put himself in the line-up to break that record. If you look at his career you can clearly see he wasn’t adding much to his teams the last 5ive years of his career. He should have retired but he was obsessed and he had to have the record and the Reds  would let him play until he was 45.

Another thing about Rose. No one played the game harder and more all out. You look at the record and Pete was always one of those players who might miss a couple games a year just to have a day of rest. The guy never got hurt. He was only on the disabled list one time in his entire career. It makes you wonder. Pete Rose didn’t look like a great athlete yet some of those players who are built like Greek Gods -are always pulling muscles or getting hurt and being disabled. I think it was Kirby Puckett who was an oddly shaped player to say the least who once said that he wished he had a body like Glenn Bragg. Glenn Bragg was one of those players who was built like a Greek God but wasn’t 1/20th of the ballplayer Kirby Puckett was.

The big question that has been debated now for decades, since Pete was banned from baseball back in the late 1980’s had been-should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame. Pete lied about his gambling for years before finally confessing {In a book- Pete is all about making money.} Was Pete Rose a Hall of Fame quality player? No doubt. This isn’t even a question that needs to be asked. I think by banning Pete Rose baseball has made him special. If he were put in the Hall of Fame the debate ends and Pete is a little less special. I’ve gone back and forth on  this issue over the years. For the most part I have been against Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame. Lately, I have been of mind put the guy in and lets get rid of this debate. Let’s quit making Pete special. If he were in the Hall he’s just another Hall of Famer.

I went down to Cincinnati last summer for a 3 game weekend series and I knew ahead of time that they still love Pete in Cincinnati. He is a hometown boy. I was amazed though at the number of people I saw walking around with jersey’s with #14 Rose on the back. To the people of Cincinnati, Pete must be like the brother who always seems to find some  trouble but he’s your brother and you love him.

Will Pete Rose’s hit total be beaten someday? I think it could. If Ichiro had come to MLB at the age of 21 he would have beaten the record. This is not an unbeatable record but I don’t know if the record will fall in Pete’s lifetime.