Or to give you a timeline:
1963: Rose enters league with Cincinnati. Wins Rookie of the Year Award.
1963-1978: Becomes huge star in Cincinnati, winning two World Series and having many great seasons.
1979-1983: Joins Philadelphia Phillies. Wins 1980 World Series, has some good years but by 1983 was an awful, old player.
1984: Rose started the year with Montreal, who dumped him back to Cincinnati. He became manager of the Reds the moment he joined them.
1985-1986: As manager of the Reds, keeps playing himself (he’s 44 by this time) despite questionable worth.
September 1985: Finally breaks Ty Cobb’s hits record.
1987-1989: Manager only of the Reds. It is sometime in this time frame that Major League Baseball begins quietly investigating his gambling connections.
1989: Thrown out of baseball for violating Rule 21(d) (gambling on a game in which he was involved.)
1991: The National Baseball Hall of Fame passes a new rule prohibiting players on the “permanently ineligible” list (like Rose) from being elected to the Hall. Before that it had always been an unwritten rule.
Rose, as a player, was a great player for at least a 10-15 year stretch, an excellent pure hitter, got on base on the time, and was a versatile and dependable defensive player. He won an MVP Award and a World Series MVP Award. He won three batting titles and two Gold Gloves. He was terrific.
As a kid, I admired him because of the way he played. Rose was unlike any player I have ever seen at any level. On the field, he RAN. I don’t mean he was fast; I mean he ran, everywhere. When he drew a walk, he ran. He ran full speed onto the field and when the inning ended he ran full speed off it. He ran full speed from the batter’s box to the dugout. And he wasn’t jogging… he was running like a man whose life depended on it. He was always paying attention, studied the opposition, studied the game, always tried, never gave up.
In the 1980 World Series he made a play where the Phillies’ catcher, Bob Boone, dropped a popup and Rose grabbed it before it hit the ground; I am telling you right now that it is quite possible that no other first baseman who has ever played the game would ever have made that play. Most first basemen would not have even thought to BE there if they saw the catcher was there in time, but Rose saved his team’s bacon with the game on the line.
If his team was down 25-0, he played just as hard as if it was a close game. He was made to switch positions three times and he never complained, just worked at his new position. He was smart, never did anything stupid, just played like hell.
If you wanted a kid to have someone to emulate as to HOW to play baseball, you could not pick a better role model than Pete Rose. Always hustle, always be alert, be respectful of the game and its traditions, be friendly to your teammates, always try to help the team, play smart baseball, be patient, and hustle some more. That was Rose. And that’s what makes this whole thing such a shame, really.