Everything he says that doesn't pertain to the HOF makes perfect sense to me.

In fact, even his take on the HOF stuff seems sane, except this:

"I admitted everything I did 14 months before the book came out to Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball. It's strange that it took so long. It was like taking this 800-pound gorilla off my shoulder. In all those years, I had no idea who to tell. I decided I had to tell the one person who was running baseball."

All those years later, it FINALLY occurred to him the commissioner would be the guy to tell?

How long did Pete Rose spend in the minors? He was only twenty-two when he was called up.

I think Rose may have spent like 4 years, maybe.

Keep in mind that a larger chunk of players weren't coming out of college in those days.

Three seasons. Hit .277 at Geneva at age 19, .331 at Tampa at age 20, and hit .330 with 9 HR 71 RBI in Macon at age 21.

Pete Rose No Longer Dreams of Being in Baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Yes, but does he dream of electric sheep?

Three seasons. Hit .277 at Geneva at age 19, .331 at Tampa at age 20, and hit .330 with 9 HR 71 RBI in Macon at age 21.

That doesn't seem like much, if any, more minor-league experience than what most players experience today.

That doesn't seem like much, if any, more minor-league experience than what most players experience today.

No, it doesn't but I did find his comment about the roving instructors interesting, if they are not doing that today then what are they doing instead?

That doesn't seem like much, if any, more minor-league experience than what most players experience today.

It was better back then okay? Bob Costas and Bob Feller told me so.

No, it doesn't but I did find his comment about the roving instructors interesting, if they are not doing that today then what are they doing instead?

I'm almost positive they still have minor league roving instructors.

2. The Jerry Royster Experience Posted: October 31, 2007 at 04:17 PM (#2601829)

How long did Pete Rose spend in the minors? He was only twenty-two when he was called up.

the cube knows all...
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/R/Pete-Rose-1.shtml

he spent 3 "years" in the minors, but he did play 2 full years: 130g/484ab (fsl) and 139g/540ab (sally) after a cup of tea in the nypl (85g/321ab)

EDIT: bah...forgot to hit submit...got beaten out by AG#1Fan

I'm almost positive they still have minor league roving instructors.

I know they do. I don't know if every team has them, but many organizations do.

Young prospects never spend (or ever spent) much time in the minor leagues, but what Rose may be trying to say is that there used to be a lot more veterans in the minors, guys on their way back down through the ranks. The Crash Davis phenomenon. You learned from your elders and betters. That may be nostalgic banana oil, but it may have a toehold on reality. The minors tend to be stocked nowadays with prospects who are let go as soon as it's clear they're not moving up. They are no longer a place where one has a career.

Rose was annoyed that the Cleveland Indians had let the Red Sox off the ropes in the American League playoffs.

Am I the only person whose first thought on reading this was, "I wonder how much money he lost on the Indians?"

The Crash Davis phenomenon. You learned from your elders and betters. That may be nostalgic banana oil, but it may have a toehold on reality. The minors tend to be stocked nowadays with prospects who are let go as soon as it's clear they're not moving up. They are no longer a place where one has a career.

Clearly you have not been following the Cardinals' farm system in recent years.

what Rose may be trying to say is that there used to be a lot more veterans in the minors, guys on their way back down through the ranks. The Crash Davis phenomenon. You learned from your elders and betters.

There are still lots of guys like that. Now, they're clustered at AAA, so I don't know if they used to scatter minor-league vets in the lower levels, but just looking at the IL and PCL leaderboards for 2007, I see guys like Val Pascucci, Scott Seabol, Pete LaForest, Fernando Tatis, Abraham Nunez, and Ernie Young, and that's just at first glance.

Here’s Rose’s take: “I just don’t think they take time to learn how to play the game nowadays. There are so many teams, guys don’t spend much time in the minor leagues. Usually in the minor leagues you have to learn how to play the game of baseball if you weren’t fortunate to have a great high school or college coach to teach you the fundamentals.

“Back when I was in the minor leagues, we had minor league roving instructors who worked on every phase of the game. In other words, what I’m saying is you can’t have on-the-job training in the big leagues. People wont tolerate it because they’re paying too much money for tickets to watch you play.”

Classic "Old Ballplayers Never Die" stuff. You can read quotations like this from players dating back to 1920. Seriously.

Rose was in the minors because he wasn't considered "star" material. He battled while at the plate, he battled on the bases and he battled defense at second base. He fought and fought and fought until he won. Pete Rose is testimony to an adamant refusal to surrender. As a ballplayer he was the baseball version of the Siege of Leningrad. Rose would eat rats before failing on the field.

There have been a 1000, no probably several thousand, ballplayers with more baseball "talent" than Pete Rose.

How long did Pete Rose spend in the minors?

Three years.

That doesn't seem like much, if any, more minor-league experience than what most players experience today.

Yeah, but you have to remember, he's an exception. He was a Hall of Fame player. Oh, wait . . . .

Ha! Pete Rose bet me $50 he'd get in!

"Am I the only person whose first thought on reading this was, 'I wonder how much money he lost on the Indians?'"

No, you aren't.

"I see guys like Val Pascucci..."

Pascucci really belongs on somebody's 25-man roster.

Teams are still loaded with roving instructors. It keeps numerous ex-players employed.

He's just trying to get a minor league job for Pete Jr.

To the best of my knowledge, the majority of Pete Rose's income comes from the sale of his signature. As a general question, would his signature be worth more or less if he gets in to the Hall of Fame?

The reason that I ask is that it seems like Rose is only a story right now because he isn't in the hall, due to his gambling ban. If, for some reason, baseball voids the ban - either with respect to all baseball or just the hall - doesn't the entire basis of his self-marketing disappear? After all, then he becomes just another hall of famer, rather than "Pete Rose - should be in the Hall of Fame but banned from Baseball".

I'm honestly curious about this.

Bill James looked into to minor league career length about twenty years ago. It has been remarkably stable since WWII: 450 games, on average. It goes up during expansion years, as older more experienced minor leaguers who know how to play the game (but have lower ceilings) flood into MLB, but that washes out after a few seasons. If anything, he concluded that more top prospects are playing more minor league games than in the period from 1950-1970.

Also, more minor league players are coming from college programs, so they already have a few years of experience above high school as well as having made the adjustment to living somewhat on their own.

Some mention also has to be made of the baseball programs in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, where kids are signed at age 16 and live, breathe, sleep, and play baseball for years before showing up in the organized minor leagues. The top prospects play in the winter leagues with and against MLB regulars while still of high school age.

Some mention also has to be made of the baseball programs in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, where kids are signed at age 16 and live, breathe, sleep, and play baseball for years before showing up in the organized minor leagues.

Yeah...But they're not playing the game the right way!

As a ballplayer he was the baseball version of the Siege of Leningrad. Rose would eat rats before failing on the field.

That's especially impressive given that for Rose eating rats would be cannibalism. <rimshot>

Pete Rose No Longer Dreams of Being in Baseball’s Hall of Fame

Excellent. Now I can dream of never having to hear about it ever again.

Pete Rose No Longer Dreams of Being in Baseball’s Hall of Fame

Excellent. Now I can dream of never having to hear about it ever again.

He didn't say that he was going to stop ######## about it for the other 16 hours a day. . .

Classic "Old Ballplayers Never Die" stuff. You can read quotations like this from players dating back to 1920. Seriously.

I could have sworn these quotes started even before then. But after pulling out my copies of both the BJHBA and the NBJHBA the earliest one I could find was Iron Joe McGinnity in the 1924 Spalding Guide:

(T)he pitchers of the present time are not as good as they were in other days... McGinnity calls attention to the faults of the present-day pitchers and is depressed by the fact that so few of them possess a good curve or try to acquire one. He thinks this is due to the fact that so many pitchers "got by" in the past with a straight delivery because they pretended to have a spit-ball, or some other method of pitching that was out of the ordinary.

Hmmm... I was just thinking about what could possibly take the BTF collective mind off of A-Rod, and lo and behold, a Pete Rose thread!

Bill James, in the BJHBA, quotes Bill Joyce, an excellent third baseman of the 1890s, as condemning the attitudes of players in 1916:

"Base ball today is not what it should be. The players do not try to learn all the fine points of the game as in the days of old, but simply try to get by...

...The boys go out to the plate, take a slam at the ball, pray that they'll get a hit, and let it go at that. They are not fighting as in the days of old...

...In my days, the man who was responsible for having lost a game was told in a man's way by a lot of men what a rotten ball player he really was. It makes me weep to think of the men of the old days who played the game and the boys of today. It's positively a shame, and they are getting big money for it, too."

Double post..oops!

Thanks, vortex. There it is on page 107. I don't know how I missed it the first time.

You can find quotes similar to that from seasons before 1910 if you have a New York Times ProQuest subscription. Or if you have the magic gift to read faded-out (and poorly-scanned) Sporting News Text on Paper of Record from that time.

"Hmmm... I was just thinking about what could possibly take the BTF collective mind off of A-Rod, and lo and behold, a Pete Rose thread!"

The question is which team did Pete Rose take in the A-rod betting sweepstakes...

I think it's sad that roving instructors are nearly extinct. A nomadic tribe, they once provided instruction to any minor league team that needed it, subsisting from a diet of outfield grass and fungoes.

In retrospect, their treaty with Branch Rickey was the crucial mistake.

I've got some copies of Leslie's Illustrated Weekly Newspaper from World War I here, but none of the baseball articles are about how much better things were in the Good Old Days. Well, one of the articles is about how much more intelligence baseball takes "now", since there are secret signals and all that.

The whole tone is a lot more positive than you get these days:

Circumstances Should Soften Criticism

It is doubtful if the average fan fully appreciates the things which completely take the heart out of pitchers, often making them mentally unfit to toss winning ball for some days succeeding the unlucky incidents. Here is an instance in point. Recently, in a game between the Providence and Newark teams of the International League, Gregg, pitching for the former club, tossed through eighteen innings of play, fanned twenty batsmen, but lost the game finally by his own wild throw of a sacrifice hit. In the game he was hit safely but five times, and not one hit was for extra bases. The pitcher's performance to the time he made the fatal slip, was almost a record. Any fan analyzing the circumstances must admit that Gregg's misfortune was sufficient to give any pitcher a case of severe depression. No rooter should be too hasty in criticizing a player, for mitigating circumstances often warrant an extension of charity rather than the imposition of censure.

Ernie Young

I love that guy.

Trenidad Hubbard still around?

...In my days, the man who was responsible for having lost a game was told in a man's way by a lot of men what a rotten ball player he really was.

He's right. The Yankees tried this with Arod and it failed miserably.

Trenidad Hubbard still around?

Sorry, Walt. It looks like the end of the trail for him was in Durham in 2005.

It looks like Curtis Pride is about done, too. One of my sisters was deaf, so I've always been rooting for him.

Did you hear the story about Hubbard's mother and one of the B-Pro guys? The guy was hurt pretty badly in a car accident and Hubbard's mother was one of his his nurses while he was convalescing. She saw the big stack of baseball books he had and asked if he had heard of his son and what he thought of his prospects. I think he said something on the order of, "He's not going to be a star but he should make good money for quite a few years." He also said she was a very good nurse. I think it was in a player comment from about five years ago. So not all snark all the time over there.

Yes, but does he dream of electric sheep?

That, and 'roids.

Did Pride ever give cochlear implants a try?

Rose was annoyed that the Cleveland Indians had let the Red Sox off the ropes in the American League playoffs.

...and expressed his disgust with a wave of his newly-cast broken arm.