By Jason Gargano
Photo By: Scott Beseler


“He is Cincinnati. He’s the Reds.”
— Big Red Machine manager Sparky Anderson on Pete Rose

One of the first non-children’s books I ever read was Pete Rose’s Winning Baseball, a fact both scary and telling.

Pete Rose was a touchstone for virtually every Cincinnatian who came of age between the mid-1960s and the late-’80s. The West Side native was an undeniable part of our cultural landscape, a blue-collar guy whose sheer grit and determination propelled him from an eager but unremarkable high school baseball player into one of the more recognizable figures in the world.

One of my favorite Rose quotes (among many) occurred on a TV show called Greatest Sports Legends, taped in 1979, in which Pete was interviewed by former teammate Tom Seaver. Asked by Seaver to sum up his career to that point, Rose went through a litany of his accomplishments — everything from the 1963 NL Rookie of the Year award to the 1973 NL MVP award to the 1975 World Series MVP award to the 44-game hitting streak in 1978 — before winding up with this nugget: “I think that’s pretty good for a guy from Western Hills High School.”

Damn right, Pete. And that was before he broke Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record in 1985.

But it wasn’t just Rose’s accomplishments as both a player and member of one the greatest teams in sports history — the Big Red Machine of the 1970s — that cemented his legacy. It was, yes, that old cliché, the way in which he played the game: balls-out every single pitch of every single game for nearly a quarter century.

The guy was a competitor of unparalleled ferocity and a charismatic if sometimes brash personality. Put simply: Pete Rose maxed his potential. How many of us, no matter the walk of life, can say that?

It goes without saying that Pete’s post-baseball life has been a bumpy ride. How’s a guy like him supposed to live without an outlet for his unbridled fire?

Yet despite his many off-field controversies and his undeniable faults as a man, Pete remains a beloved figure in his hometown — especially on the sometimes unreasonably loyal West Side — more than 20 years after playing days.

But Best Local Hero, as CityBeat readers voted him again this year? (See page 69.) Surely there are better choices, right?

Uh, maybe not. Ask a non-native what they know of the Queen City, and two words often fall from their lips: Pete Rose.

I once asked comedian Bill Maher what he knew about Cincinnati during an interview.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Nothing?” I questioned.

“Well, I loved the Big Red Machine. Pete Rose, that was a player.”

Pete the player is exactly what the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum honors in Pete: The Exhibit, which opened March 17.

Given permission by Major League Baseball to honor the long-suspended hit king, the exhibit features a plethora of Pete memorabilia, including the bat Rose used to break Cobb’s record, various Rose jerseys, hats, gloves and more bats, scorecards, balls, posters, vintage Rose baseball cards and — surprise! — a Japanese translation of the long out-of-print Pete Rose’s Winning Baseball.

“Many people who never got the chance to see Rose play know him only from what’s occurred the past 20 years,” says Greg Rhodes, executive director of the museum. “This is a chance to show them why he meant so much to Reds fans and this city. It was a no-brainer.”

A documentary, aptly titled The Cincinnati Kid, plays on a flat-screen TV as one enters the exhibit. Shot in 1970, it features a fresh-faced Rose as he leads us through a tour of his old stomping grounds in Anderson Ferry, the small, working-class neighborhood on Cincinnati’s West Side. As the brief film closes, Pete delivers this prescient voiceover: “You know when you walk onto an airplane — I want to be a good enough fella, a good enough ball player, for everybody to know who I am.”

Perhaps the greatest sign of Rose’s passion for the game — he once famously said he’d “walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball” — was his first professional scouting report in 1960, which is reprinted on a wall for all to see: “Pete Rose can’t make a double play, can’t throw, can’t hit left-handed and can’t run.”

Actually, that assessment was largely true. Plenty of guys had more raw talent; Pete just wanted it more. During a 24-year playing career, 19 of which he spent with the Reds, Rose was a player of extraordinary durability, especially for a guy known for his all-or-nothing nature.

That durability is perhaps his most overlooked asset and the obvious reason for his record-book prowess.

Baseball is game of statistics, and few players compiled more impressive stats than Pete Rose. And he knew it: Pete loved talking about baseball and its rich history and, of course, his place in it. But there’s one stat Rose is most interested in discussing as his lasting legacy.

“I played in 1,972 winning games,” he said during a recent press conference at the museum to kick off the exhibit. “That makes me the biggest winner in the history of sports.

“This is great for me because it’s Cincinnati. I’m from Cincinnati. It’s great for the fans. There’s so much history. The Big Red Machine — it’s nice to be mentioned in the same breath as those guys.”

Now 65, Rose’s closely shorn hair might be getting sparse and he might be carrying a little extra baggage around the waist, but there’s no denying the guy is still mad for the game that made him. The 30-minute press conference was vintage Rose as he riffed on various baseball memories with the former players in the crowd — Dave Parker, Leo Cardenas and Tommy Helms, among others. He spoke fondly of his days with the Big Red Machine and its manager, Sparky Anderson, “the greatest handler of men I’ve ever been around.”

And, of course, he talked of his love for the fans.

“The people who run baseball — everything should be for the fans,” Pete said. “Now do you not think if they were to retire my number that the fans would be elated here in Cincinnati? I’d have to say so. It’s good for the fans, it’s good for the team, it’s good for the city, it’s good for baseball. I wish I could change what happened in the past, but I can’t. I have to live with that.”

The conversation inevitably moved to his banishment from baseball and his prospects of ever getting into the big one, the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.

“I quit worrying about the Hall of Fame,” he said. “It’s been 17 years since I was suspended.”

Moments later he reversed field, pleading his case for reinstatement before offering up this wager: “I might even make a bet with you: I’ll have the biggest reception Cooperstown has ever seen.”

On one topic he’s irrefutable: “No matter what anybody says, my name is synonymous with the game of baseball.”
And, for better or worse, Pete Rose is synonymous with Cincinnati. ©