There was a moment in HBO’s documentary “Charlie Hustle & The Matter Of Pete Rose” where Al Michaels – who became good friends with Pete when he was the play-by-play man for the Cincinnati Reds in the early 70s – was asked about how tragic it was Rose hadn’t gotten into the baseball Hall Of Fame.
Michaels corrected his questioner, saying “it’s not tragic. It’s just sad.”
After watching the 4-part series, I’m left with the same point of view. Peter Edward Rose, who passed away Monday, isn’t a tragic figure. He’s easily the greatest baseball player I’ve seen in my life, and the documentary brings back memories of all his on the field exploits, causing me to come away thinking he was even better than I remembered.
But the documentary, which I thought was fair and balanced, also points out what a stubborn, in-your-face man he was. He was described as his own worst enemy, and while I still believe Rose should be in the baseball HOF, I now understand why at every turn when baseball had a chance to forgive him and allow him redemption, they chose not to.
On the field, he was Cincinnati’s Babe Ruth, having grown up there and gone from raw rookie to a player known all over the world. He was confident and cocky, and would do whatever it took to win, whether it was his trademark head-first slide, or bowling over a catcher at the plate. He did things no one has ever done before or after his time in the game, specifically his 4,256 hits that stand as the most ever collected in the history of the game.
Off the field he was engaging and personable, could needle a teammate with the best of them and was a great storyteller. Back when I was a sportswriter, we would refer to folks like Pete as a “quote machine.” One writer in the documentary called Rose a reliable narrator of his own story before acknowledging “he also proved himself to be a consummate liar.”
Which is where I’ve come to understand what baseball did.
Stay around sports enough and you’ll meet supremely talented athletes who don’t understand just because you wear a uniform, it doesn’t excuse you as a human being. Pete had a problem with gambling – which I personally don’t care as it related to the HOF, because it’s not the Hall of Saints. It should be only about what you did on the field.
But Pete’s gambling got so bad, he had the hooks of organized crime in him. He ended up financing drug sales to pay off big gambling losses. He was into some really bad stuff and he was being investigated for it by John Dowd, who wasn’t some rookie private investigator. He was a former attorney for the United State Department of Justice, and former Marine Corps Judge Advocate. He had boxes and boxes of documented evidence that went far beyond just gambling.
Seeing this, Rose agreed to being banned on the condition they stopped the investigation into him, perhaps suggesting there were even graver things out there to be discovered.
Then he started lying about everything. For 13 years he looked dead into any camera that would have him, saying he never bet on baseball, sticking to the same lie year after year and doing it with a straight face. Then he finally admitted it to commissioner Bud Seilg in 2002 and publicly confessed in a book he wrote.
Even then, as people would interview him, he’d answer questions with “I only bet on the Reds” and “I always bet on them to win, never to lose.” I mean, how do we know? For 13 years you said you never bet at all. How could we possibly believe you?
Several times in the documentary they’d show concrete evidence of other events, then go to Rose, sitting in an old leather chair, saying “I never did it.”
Rose seemingly went through life knowing to his baseball fans, he could do no wrong. He seemed to think if he kept stonewalling it with denials, the parties judging him would eventually retire, new younger people who didn’t remember all the details would decide enough time had passed, and he one day would be forgiven.
Yet each time a new campaign was mounted, it seemed like Pete would deny something they had concrete evidence of, or simply put his foot in his mouth. Several of his closest allies acknowledged that Pete could be his own worst enemy, and apparently Rose fulfilled that description often.
I do believe he was right about thinking that in time, he would be forgiven and granted access to the Hall of Fame. But the thing about forgiveness, going all the way back to the beginning of most religions, is the concept that you need to confess your sins before being forgiven. Without remorse, you’re really not sorry you committed the crime. You’re just sorry you got caught.
That seemed to be all baseball wanted.
It came through loud and clear in the documentary that Pete never came completely clean. Former commissioner Faye Vincent as much as said that baseball wanted to forgive him back in 1996, and if he’d only admit his wrongdoings and showed contrition, minds would have been changed.
It just never happened.
Truth is, now that he has passed away, he probably will soon be elected to the hall. If they put his name on a ballot, younger writers will vote for him in droves. It is human nature to forgive and forget, and many who didn’t live through all of Rose’s issues will do just that.
It’s an odd situation. I grew up with Watergate, where they said the coverup was bigger than the actual crime, yet in Pete Rose’s case, it WAS the actual crime. Had he not said for 13 years he never bet on baseball and told the truth, he’d have probably been back in baseball 20 years ago. He’d have gotten into the HOF and realized the moment he dreamed of all his life.
Instead, he’ll one day be inducted posthumously. It won’t be a celebration in front of friends and former players, and won’t be a happy time to revere baseball’s greatest player.
It will now seem more like a second funeral. And it didn’t need to be this way.
That, as Al Michaels said, won’t be tragic.
It will just be sad.
