That's a convincing denial, for sure. He can go into the Polanski wing of the HoF.

Never stop being you, Pete

There's a certain beauty in your unapologetic trailer park personality

He remembers the exact date when he didn't have sex with that teenager.

So, I’m gonna take that to mean since 1973 is 49 years ago, he’s actually admitting to inappropriate relations with an eight year old.

He waited until they got to Ohio what more do you want.

If the best spin his own lawyer can come up with is “unverified “…

If the best spin his own lawyer can come up with is “unverified “…

Go easy on him. He's been busy wrapping up his defense work in the Alex Jones trial.

"It was 55 years ago, babe,”

Pete is so on-brand.

I don't see the problem. This is one of the most romantic stories in history, when the batman gave her a kiss from the rose.

If the best spin his own lawyer can come up with is “unverified “…

The article states he had relations with the girl. They are just claiming she was 16 and only in Ohio where it was legal.

However being married, having kids, being an adult and having sex with a 16 year old(like he's claiming) is still all sorts of wrong, no matter how you look at it.

I don't say this about many people, but the world will be a much better place when this guy is gone. He really is just an awful human.

It's strange how this all came to light. John Dowd was on an AM radio show in West Chester, PA (I'm not even sure that can be picked up in Philly) when he mentioned offhand that Rose's bookie had said Rose committed statutory rape 40 years ago in spring training. The bookie denied saying it. But Rose wasn't going to just let it go, so he filed a defamation suit against Dowd. Dowd then got a woman to sign a sworn statement (which was presumably under seal) that she had sex with Rose before she was 16.

If the victim had voluntarily come forward, even anonymously, this would carry a lot more weight. But the credibility of the allegations really comes down to Dowd's integrity. That may be higher than Rose's, by not by a lot and that's not saying much. And yes, it feels gross to defend Rose.

I've got no inhibitions
So keep your keys out of your ignition
I steal a car like I got the curse
I can't resist the old lady's purse

Jailbait you look so good to me
Jailbait won't you set me free
Jailbait you look fine fine fine
I know I've got to have you in a matter of time

Well I don't care if you're just thirteen
You look too good to be true
I just know that you're probably clean
There's one lil' thing I got do to you

Jailbait you look so good to me
Jailbait won't you set me free
Jailbait you look fine fine fine
I know I've got to have you in a matter of time

So tell your mama that I'm back in town
She likes us boys when it's time to get down
She's got this craving for the underage
I just might be your mama's brand new rage

Jailbait you look so good to me
Jailbait won't you set me free
Jailbait you look fine fine fine
I know I got to have you in a matter of time

Honey you you you look so nice
She's young she's tender
Won't you please surrender
She's so fine she's mine
All the time, all mine mine
It's all right baby
It's quite all right I asked your mama
Wait a minute officer
Don't put those handcuffs on me
Put them on her and I'll share her with you

Jailbait, jailbait

I got to know who Pete Rose was in the early 1980s, when he was still really famous, but was not much of a baseball player by then. But he was clearly one of the, what, 10 most famous players in the sport...maybe in sports.

For those older than me, who followed baseball in the 1960s and/or 1970s, a few questions about Pete Rose:

1) Was he considered a really bad guy back then, before the gambling and the stories like this? Was he considered a really unlikable star?

2) Was he famous in the way an athlete transcends sports, and becomes a popular culture figure? (Like, basically the difference between LeBron James, who has near-universal name ID, whether you are an NBA nut or my teenaged daughter who doesn't watch a second of basketball; versus somebody like Mike Trout, who is one of the best baseball players of the last several decades, but could walk through Times Square and barely be recognized.)

3) At his peak (late 1960s? 1973-1976?), how valuable a player was he, really? He was obviously very good at getting on base, making contact, and never missing a game - you'd have to be all these things to get to 4000+ hits - and he was in the top 10 of the MVP voting 10 times. But how much of that was reputation, and how much of that was that he actually was one of the 10 best players in the league for a long time?

Thanks in advance for sharing your wisdom...

1) Was he considered a really bad guy back then, before the gambling and the stories like this? Was he considered a really unlikable star?

Not at all.

2) Was he famous in the way an athlete transcends sports, and becomes a popular culture figure? (Like, basically the difference between LeBron James, who has near-universal name ID, whether you are an NBA nut or my teenaged daughter who doesn't watch a second of basketball; versus somebody like Mike Trout, who is one of the best baseball players of the last several decades, but could walk through Times Square and barely be recognized.)

Closer to LeBron than Trout. He was bigger than any NBA player at the time. If he wasn't the biggest star in the sport, he was right there with Reggie and Garvey.

At his peak (late 1960s? 1973-1976?), how valuable a player was he, really? He was obviously very good at getting on base, making contact, and never missing a game - you'd have to be all these things to get to 4000+ hits - and he was in the top 10 of the MVP voting 10 times. But how much of that was reputation, and how much of that was that he actually was one of the 10 best players in the league for a long time?

Legitimately excellent, though a little overrated for the obvious reasons (lots of hits, insanely competitive, awful haircut, etc.)

Pete Rose interview from peak of his national fame?

I agree, Rose was very famous. Baseball players on the whole were much more famous, 50 years ago, than now. Active players more famous than Rose, 50 years ago, included Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, & Tom Seaver. Rose was in a second but very visible tier with Roberto Clemente, Dick Allen, Reggie Jackson, Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski, & Bob Gibson. All of them were far more recognizable than any baseball star today. They made covers of Sports Illustrated when that was a dominant venue.

Mike Trout can walk unknown today, but so can practically every other current baseball star, even in their local markets. It is a very different dynamic, thus hard to compare a baseball star then to LeBron today; to some extent baseball had almost all the LeBron-like icons that existed in American team sports between about 1900 and 1960, and still more than its share through the 1980s.

I'll echo was SoSH says. He was very much viewed as a guy who played the game The Right Way with the sprinting to first on a walk to the head-first slides to the quotes like how he'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball, to even running through Ray Fosse in the All-Star Game. I think the take today would be "What a ****!" but the spin back then was "What a competitor!" He was famous enough to be featured in many successful ad campaigns. His catch of Bob Boone's bobble as the next-to-last out of the 1980 World Series was treated like the Jeter Flip before there was Jeter.

70s not 60s guy here.

1) Was he considered a really bad guy back then, before the gambling and the stories like this? Was he considered a really unlikable star?

My memory is a bit different I'd say. Not "bad" as in gambler much less rapist ... that sort of stuff wasn't talked about in those days. But a guy you loved to hate, an overly competitive jerk? That was the impression I got. I'm not sure anybody said it outright but the classic "unless he's on your team ..." "he'll do anything it takes to win ..." sort of player. I think the running to first thing was recognized as a bit of a schtick.

2) Yeah, he was famous, national spokesman for Aqua Velva. But he wasn't Steve Garvey guest appearance on Fantasy Island famous! He doesn't seem to have been on The Superstars. It seems to me his national fame took a big jump when he made a (not that close really) run at DiMaggio's record hitting streak, I recall that being on the nightly national news for a few days before the streak broke. But plenty of sports media coverage. Apparently 15 SI covers, 10 from his playing days, one sportsman of the year award -- with the first one in 1968 referring to him as "brash." Anyway, he certainly reached a level of fame such that it was a big deal that he got caught gambling ... not exactly a big scandal if, say, Denis Menke had done it.

3) Basically Tim Raines without any steals ... or Jeter. From 1965-76, ages 24-35, he hit 317/388/445, 132 OPS+ with more walks than Ks. That was 68 WAR so a 5.5 WAR/year player ... with an insane 8747 PA (over 725 PA per year). Raines peaked at a younger age but for 22-33: 299/388/430, 128 OPS+, 59 WAR in about 1100 fewer PA. Jeter for ages 24-35: 320/392/466, 124 OPS+, 60 WAR in about 400 fewer PA. After that, Rose just hung on forever.

I'd completely forgotten Rose was 1973 MVP, part of an insane run for the Reds with Bench in 70 and 72, Morgan in 75-76 and Foster in 77. Rose got MVP votes in 15 of 17 seasons, including a 2nd, two 4ths and a 5th along with that one award. He almost always made the AS team for 15+ years but only regularly started it from 73-77. (Of course once he moved to the OF, he had Aaron/Mays/Clemente to compete with for a while.)

The first book my parents ever got me was his biography "Charlie Hustle," circa 1968-74.

the closest modern parallel - and this Wyoming kid is a choir boy, so literally in this one example only - is the Mets' Brandon Nimmo in terms of sprinting to first base after each walk.

the book as I recall it was essentially an explainer of "if you outwork your rivals, you can succeed no matter what."

I was a small kid (I grew over a foot in HS so never mind), so when I interviewed Pete a couple of years ago, I told him that I found some inspiration in his book's message. not surprisingly, he liked that a lot.

he was such an intense player and the Reds were so insanely successful that he did kind of become the brand of the team. Bench was young, Perez and Concepcion were Latin... ok, Morgan was WAY better and Griffey Sr. was quite good and Foster had a couple of monster years so you do the math as you like.

the Mets-Reds NLCS 1973 brawl Rose v scrawny SS Bud Harrelson and the Rose blindsiding of C Ray Fosse in an All-Star Game (the year before), kind of cemented Rose as the focus, as I recall.

So, I’m gonna take that to mean since 1973 is 49 years ago,

Mostly, I'm irrationally upset that 1973 was 49 years ago.

I’m not old enough to have seen Pete play in his prime, so I won’t answer the questions directly, but there are two things in Rose’s stat line that are still interesting to me after all the noise and drama over the last 35 years.

1) his age 27 season occurred in the year of the pitcher, 1968. As it was, Rose peaked a few years later but it has always seemed impressive to me that Rose hit .335 in ‘68, despite league averages being almost 100 points lower. The Hit King, not surprisingly, was really good at getting hits.

2) for all the hype that Rose got for playing all those positions, the reality was that he wasn’t a good defensive player at any of them…except for LF. Check his DWAR from 72-74. He was in his 30s by then but: he was tied for first in the NL in Fielding Runs in ‘72, first in ‘73, and 3rd in the league in ‘74. He was an excellent left fielder…and then famously moved to 3rd base.

The prole-o-phobia in America is highly unbecoming, to say the least. Its underlying source has to be the anxiety of the allegedly-credentialed.

and then famously moved to 3rd base.

To get George Foster's bat into the lineup. In that respect, Derek Jeter he was not.

PLAYBOY: And as you get older, isn’t it easier for things to go wrong?

ROSE: Well, I didn’t shrink last year. It was one of the most at-bat seasons I ever had in my career, 700, and I struck out 30 times, the all-time low.

The norm, in full-effect.

for all the hype that Rose got for playing all those positions, the reality was that he wasn’t a good defensive player at any of them…except for LF. Check his DWAR from 72-74. He was in his 30s by then but: he was tied for first in the NL in Fielding Runs in ‘72, first in ‘73, and 3rd in the league in ‘74. He was an excellent left fielder…and then famously moved to 3rd base.

Also, for clarity: Rose in 72-74 was at the top of the NL in fielding runs, across all positions. He was, theoretically, the best defensive player in the whole league for a three year stretch. It's weird.

Two things struck me about Rose when he was active, and are quite evident in his stat line. One was that, addicted to hits as he was, he would never turn down a walk – seven times in the top 10 in bases on balls, mostly in the company of guys with more power.

The other was how, at the age of 33, having lost a step of his speed and much of his power, Rose started to lead the league in doubles every year. It was a lot of fun to watch, especially if you rooted for his team. Rose would hit your basic single, and if it wasn't straight at an outfielder, he simply wouldn't stop at first base. The outfielder would execute a routine play, and then, holy heck, there's Rose heading into second base. I don't remember him getting burned much on that maneuver (and I once leafed through some year in question, to find that he almost never got thrown out trying to stretch a single). You'd think defenses would have adapted, but Rose was too attentive to be denied his doubles.

This is all good insight. I few years ago, I was trying to explain to my kids who Michael Jackson was (they were old enough to remember him, but generally not think of him as a big deal or anything). I was like, "There are probably three parts to that answer," which is unusual. He was the child prodigy. He was the biggest star in the world, probably the biggest pop star since The Beatles, at a level of magnitude that is difficult for my kids to fully appreciate. And then there was this bizarre, troubling later phase of his life. I feel like you can't answer the question about who Michael Jackson was unless you hit all on three pieces.

I think Pete Rose is like that, too, right? There is the Reds Pete Rose, Charlie Hustle, one of the best players of his time, a one-of-a-kind style, a key part of one of the greatest team stretches in history. Then there is the post-Big Red Machine baseball Rose - declining as a player, but determined to stay in the lineup every day in pursuit of an ultimate record; not a great player, but remaining one of the most famous players, and somebody who people couldn't help but watch; and even transitioned into a manager of his hometown Reds, while still playing...and being a pretty good manager. And then the final, awful phase, which has lasted far longer than either of the first two phases, and is terrible to watch continue to unfold, even into his 80s. You need all three to tell the story, right?

Good catch, BDC. Without putting any kind of moral judgment on it (*), baseball in Rose's day was played fast. Today it is played slow. Very slow. I detested the guy, but he obviously played the game extremely fast -- as an end in itself.

(*) Though I will put an aesthetic judgment on it, of course.

And then the final, awful phase, which has lasted far longer than either of the first two phases, and is terrible to watch continue to unfold, even into his 80s.

That's far more an America problem than it is a Rose problem. His lifetime ban for gambling was always on shaky ground to the fair-minded -- now it looks like something out of the annals of the Texas Old Biddy's Temperance Union, circa 1911.

Re27. BRef has some data on outs made at second and extra bases taken.

The other was how, at the age of 33, having lost a step of his speed and much of his power, Rose started to lead the league in doubles every year. It was a lot of fun to watch, especially if you rooted for his team. Rose would hit your basic single, and if it wasn't straight at an outfielder, he simply wouldn't stop at first base. The outfielder would execute a routine play, and then, holy heck, there's Rose heading into second base. I don't remember him getting burned much on that maneuver (and I once leafed through some year in question, to find that he almost never got thrown out trying to stretch a single). You'd think defenses would have adapted, but Rose was too attentive to be denied his doubles.

I had a similar theory about Evan Gattis' 11-triple season (and, guys who finish cycles with triples.)

Most doubles are sort of prisoner's dilemmas between the fielder and the runner. Okay, that ball's down the line or in the gap.

--If we both just accept that it's a double and do our thing, we can conserve some energy.
--Or, we could both sprint at full speed, and it's still probably a double, we've just sprinted for no reason.

But the minute a hitter really needs/wants the triple, they basically renege on their part of the equation, and sprint the whole way. The fielder has his back turned and probably doesn't know that's what's going on until it's too late.

In Rose's case, the fielders don't have that excuse, but I still suspect that's what was going on.

Re27. BRef has some data on outs made at second and extra bases taken.

The XBT only highlights going two bases on a single or three as a double as a runner. They would not account for a ball Rose hit that would have been a single had he not stopped.

Unrelated personal take: The doubles record should be doubles and triples combined.

Unrelated personal take: The doubles record should be doubles and triples combined.

Related response: No they shouldn't.

Re #'s 22 and 26, these are the NL guys who started over 100 games in left field:

1972: Rose, Brock, Luzinski, Watson, Williams, Singleton
1973: Rose, Luzinski, Brock, Watson, Stargell, Mathews, Williams, Fairly
1974: Rose, Brock, Mathews, Watson, Stargell, Buckner, C. Jones

The top dozen guys each year brings in Aaron, Bob Bailey, Mota, Leron Lee, John Milner, Carty. Buckner's bad ankle injury was in 1975.

The doubles record should be doubles and triples combined.

And inside-the-park home runs.

That's a convincing denial, for sure. He can go into the Polanski wing of the HoF.

The most recent American cultural portrayal of Polanski, in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, was quite favorable indeed -- and not just because he was the husband of poor, doomed Sharon Tate. Most of us are more grown up than America's young and old bluenose reductionists and various and sundry old farts.

1) Was he considered a really bad guy back then, before the gambling and the stories like this? Was he considered a really unlikable star?

Just the opposite, really, he was one of the most likable stars in the game. He loved baseball and life so much that it was just infectious. He chatted with fans all the time. He's spend time before games signing autographs and interacting. Sportswriters loved him because he always loved to talk. He really had what they used to call the common touch. As Tom Boswell put it, he not only remembered the names of, say, the opposing teams' groundskeepers, he remembered their kids' names.

And his teammates revered him. When a new guy joined the team or a rookie got called up, Rose was the guy who took them to dinner, bought them clothes, invited them to stay at his house. Even opposing players -- heck, Ray Fosse and his wife were his dinner guests the night before Rose clobbered him in the All-Star game.

So yeah, very popular guy at the time, especially within the game.

Since all the play-by-play data is readily available via Retrosheet, it is fairly easy to compile how many times Pete Rose was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double (including getting thrown out returning to 1B after making a wide turn around 1B on a single).

Here is the tally of Rose's doubles and such outs from 1974-1978 (his age 33-37 seasons in which he led the league in doubles 4 times):

1974 45 1
1975 47 1
1976 42 3
1977 38 3
1978 51 1

Similar to what Ithica pointed out above, Rose ran hard right out of the box on nearly all hits to the outfield. So he could "convert" what would typically be a single into a double whenever the outfielder was slow fielding the ball, made a less-than-perfect throw to 2B, etc. Of course, Rose could see what was happening on the play so could safely return to 1B if the outfielder made a good play/throw to 2B.

So yeah, very popular guy at the time, especially within the game.

Well, he doesn't seem to have been very popular with the Reds' white guys, or white fans, early on. Quite the opposite:

PLAYBOY: OK, back to baseball. You mentioned earlier that you get “racial” letters from baseball fans. What did you mean?

ROSE: It goes back a long way. I was actually called into the office in 1963 for hanging with the black players too much.

PLAYBOY: Why?

ROSE: The white players didn’t want to associate with me. See, in 1961, the Reds won the pennant and they had a guy named Don Balsingame on second base. In 1962, he had his best year ever. He hit .281. So because of those reasons, in 1963, they all thought that he could help them win their pennant again. Fred Hutchinson, the manager, stuck me at second base, and they all resented that. They didn’t want a rookie on second base, because they had veterans in all the other positions. And the only guys that treated me with any dignity and decency was Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson, the black guys. It was a very cliquish team in those days. That’s why they didn’t win.

I'm gonna take a wild guess here and speculate that a certain compound noun, first letter "n," last five letters, "l, o, v, e, and r" were thrown around more than a little bit in the letters and clubhouse.

I was a little kid learning to play in Pete's heyday (I was born in 1969). All the way through college, any time I got a clean hit (meaning in this context that there is 0 chance of a play at first) I could hear my grandpa telling me that "it's a double until they make it not a double." I always associated that idea with Pete, though the connection may be tenuous.

1) Was he considered a really bad guy back then, before the gambling and the stories like this? Was he considered a really unlikable star?

He alwways got booed during introductions at the All-Star game (if it wasn't in Cincy of course), but I always got the impression it was a good-natured ribbing, just something that everyone did.

If you compare say Papi Ortiz's doubles hit pattern in 2016 to a typical Rose pattern the differences would indeed be stark.

I think it was primate kiko sakata who has a site that compiles various statistical measures and I thought he said he gave Rose +5 runs a year for taking extra bases. I presume during his peak. He was thought to be really good at running the bases

I was the one switch-hitter in my town during the Little League years and so I had an opposing coach call me "Pete", good-naturedly and as a sign of respect.

This was in the late-80s (post Rose's playing career) in Connecticut.

Re #'s 22 and 26, these are the NL guys who started over 100 games in left field:

1972: Rose, Brock, Luzinski, Watson, Williams, Singleton
1973: Rose, Luzinski, Brock, Watson, Stargell, Mathews, Williams, Fairly
1974: Rose, Brock, Mathews, Watson, Stargell, Buckner, C. Jones

The top dozen guys each year brings in Aaron, Bob Bailey, Mota, Leron Lee, John Milner, Carty. Buckner's bad ankle injury was in 1975.

Just to make sure I'm making the connection, is the point that fielding runs is calculated as a comparison to the league average? Which, given the guys listed above, means that Rose was being compared to some notoriously bad fielders during his fielding peak?

I remember three things about Pete Rose ca. 1980, when I was still in elementary school:

He may not have been blessed with Jim Palmer looks but he was definitely a marketable celebrity. (Aqua Velva, anyone?)

Now a first baseman with Philly, whenever the third out was a result of a groundout, he would spike the ball on the artificial surface as he started jogging toward the dugout.

On the wall of "Archie Bunker's Place," there was a photo of his classic head-first dive into third base, which might have been taken during the 1976 World Series.

On the wall of "Archie Bunker's Place," there was a photo of his classic head-first dive into third base, which might have been taken during the 1976 World Series.

There are photos of him doing it in both the 75 and 76 Series, though I think the 75 slide (with Rico Petrocelli awaiting the throw) is the more iconic image.

The 75 Series is also when, after Bernie Carbo homered to tie up Game 6 in the eighth inning, he rounded third and yelled, "Pete don't you wish you as strong as me?" and Rose responded, "This is fun," though both halves of the conversation included much more profanity than that.

Whenever I played softball I would run until the defense proved they could stop me. That worked pretty well until I ran up against an ex major leaguer at which point I said you got me and walked backed to the dugout.

Thanks, Rob, for that breakdown in #38!

Now a first baseman with Philly, whenever the third out was a result of a groundout, he would spike the ball on the artificial surface as he started jogging toward the dugout.

I loathed that ridiculous move and he looked like a deranged lunatic when he did it.

What Rose defenders forget is how gambling almost destroyed baseball. Which is why the MLB will never have anything to do with it, not even fantasy sports, no siree.

Pete was and is a loathsome individual who through his own actions and hubris put himself in the situation where he is permanently banned and ineligible for the HoF. He's done nothing since his banning to show he should be let back in.

Just to make sure I'm making the connection, is the point that fielding runs is calculated as a comparison to the league average?

I don't know, so I avoided stating that. I thought at the very least the list provided a snapshot of what left field used to be.

There are photos of him doing it in both the 75 and 76 Series, though I think the 75 slide (with Rico Petrocelli awaiting the throw) is the more iconic image.

I'm kinda, sorta sure this was the one hanging on the wall.

Every time I see a picture like that, all I can think of is the impact on his body when he lands. And somehow he played in 3500 games.

Maybe. I was thinking of this one.

I've seen the '76 one with Nettles about a million times, but never the Petrocelli one until just now. So I think maybe the '76 one is more iconic. There's a similar one on the cover of Posnanski's The Machine, which appears to have been taken at Wrigley Field. No shortage of photos of Rose diving into 3rd, I guess.

Every time I see a picture like that, all I can think of is the impact on his body when he lands. And somehow he played in 3500 games.

I played other sports in high school, but in the summer of 1982 played in a decent summer baseball league. (Weak-armed shortstop.) Had the curls like Rickey (natural), the headband under the curls like Rickey, Rickey was the cat's ass that summer (*), and so naturally I thought, "When I steal second next time, I'm going to slide headfirst like Rickey." So I did and was safe, but scraped the #### out of my chin and cheek, and that was the last headfirst slide of my life.

Roughly two weeks later, not really with anyone in mind but just because, I decided I was going to chew some tobacco during the game on a 90+ degree summer day and in like the fourth inning I blew massive chow in short left field.(**) That was the last tobacco I ever had in my life, chewing, dip or otherwise.

(*) And of course as life and time went on, it became clear that Rickey was just generally the cat's ass.

(**) Brought back to gruesome memory at Yankee Stadium 39 years later when witnessing the Angels' Dylan Bundy blowing massive chow just off the Yankee Stadium mound, essentially crippled by heat exhaustion. He left the game, I stayed in.

Probably just the angle, but he looks more like he's flat-out flying in the Yankee Stadium one.

Probably just the angle, but he looks more like he's flat-out flying in the Yankee Stadium one.


It might just be earlier in his dive.

I loved watching Rose play and at 13 modeled his approach to hitting. The way he would almost stare the ball into the glove on pitches he did not swing at. It really taught me the strike zone with that approach. He was never my favorite but he was up there. By time I heard all of the crap he did and was into I was pretty much unfazed by the news, I had met enough people that played at a high level to know there were a TON of jerks out there playing the game. Hell there were enough jerks coaching, scouting, representing,...

I watched and and studied a lot of people that ended up being jerks and figured I just needed to compartmentalize it. The only person that I never wanted to meat in case my expectations were to be squashed was Ernie Banks. So if you have bad stories keep them to yourself.

If you can't separate the art from the artist, you're going about this all wrong.

(Which means on the flip side that if you need to be all fanboy to enjoy this, you're going about this all wrong and if you routinely feel the need to proselytize for fanboyism, you're really going about this all wrong.)

I'm kinda, sorta sure this was the one hanging on the wall.

You are correct. It's cropped down from the photo linked so you only see the leg of the Yankee fielder.

You can see the photo in the background of this YouTube video which promotes Reggie Jackson (!) visiting Archie's bar.

is the point that fielding runs is calculated as a comparison to the league average? Which, given the guys listed above, means that Rose was being compared to some notoriously bad fielders during his fielding peak?

Im not exactly what the point was, but I dont think that's correct about how they calculate fielding runs. I believe it is against the average OUTFIELDER including CFers. That's how they do it currently no idea if that would apply to Rose's day.

Always photographers and TV cameramen in the 1st and 3rd base "wells" so always well-positioned for the big dive into 3B. And if Rose was playing, knowing they could publish that photo, I'd imagine they were battling for position.

Yes, that's a list of pretty atrocious LFs there. Luzinski and Brock pretty famously so. Billy Williams was just sorta regular bad by my memmory but he was 34-35 in those seasons. Bob Watson was better suited to 1B (which he would move to pretty permanently a couple of years later) but was blocked by Lee May. Stargell was, ummm, no longer the 188 lbs he's listed at on b-r and was 33. (I never saw the young Stargell but I'd have guessed he hit 188 lbs when he was about 15-16. Al Oliver, who seemed pretty svelte in his early years and played a good bit of CF, is listed at 195 and two inches shorter than Stargell.) Fairly was probably OK -- I don't recall -- and that was his only season in LF but he too ended up with more time at 1B. The young Buckner was fast but that doesn't guarantee anything (see Brock, Coleman, Raines). Sarge had good speed too but the way he went after FBs you wondered if he needed glasses (or a compass). I could never really keep Cleon Jones and Donn Clendenon straight when they played, I have no idea how good a LF he was.

Career SB:
Luzinski 37-31
Williams 90-49 (much more/better than I expected)
Stargell 17-16
Watson 27-28
Fairly 35-33

All that said, I don't know that these guys were any worse than Schwarber in any absolute sense, surely Luzinski was no worse than Manny. Best defensive LF has always been a low hurdles contest. Rose did win two GG but both in seasons he was playing RF not LF -- still impressive given they didn't have separate OF GGs in those days and Clemente was always going to hoover up one and Flood was about to start getting one a year too. (GG voters had decided that Mays had finally lost enough steps by 1969.) I really don't remember but I would assume that (a) Rose busted his ass after everything hit his way and (b) Rose was fond of the Edmonds dive.

#37 makes good points (not that I personally experienced any of that). Rose was sort of a cross between your classic "blue collar" player and Harry Caray.

BDC mentions the walks (and the doubles hustling). There is zero doubt he was a competitive guy who'd take advantage of anything you gave him. He gets criticized for staying on the field to get Cobb's record and fairly enough. But even though he was chasing that record, the man still took his walks -- from ages 42-45, he had a 12% BB rate. He might have been hurting his team going out there in pursuit of the record but he couldn't stop being Pete Rose when he was on the field -- he was still gonna do everything he could to reach base.

I really don't remember but I would assume that (a) Rose busted his ass after everything hit his way and (b) Rose was fond of the Edmonds dive.

Both true. Also he really charged the ball on hits in front of him and had a quick release and a fairly weak but very accurate arm, so he got lots of assists. And people don't remember this because he played long after he lost most of his speed, but he was FAST when he was young.

I watched and and studied a lot of people that ended up being jerks and figured I just needed to compartmentalize it. The only person that I never wanted to meat in case my expectations were to be squashed was Ernie Banks. So if you have bad stories keep them to yourself.

Ha! I only talked to Ernie once but for about 30 minutes at a baseball event I was covering as a young (temporary) reporter. I'm sure he had his moments in other contexts but he was unbelievably gracious in that context, even checking back with me at the end to be sure I had what I needed from him before he left. Obviously he was making sure he was written up well but he was already Ernie Banks by that point and my "contribution" wasn't going to make a difference one way or the other

surely Luzinski was no worse than Manny

This is a great question. Luzinski was the first fascinatingly awful defender I ever saw so probably stuck in my memory more than deserved. But I can't conjure anything from Manny that was anything like the routine shittiness of Luzinski. He did try so I get that gives him a seeming legup, but it also made clear how limited he was. If they raced twice around the bases, Manny would probably lap him.

Before my time, but my general impression is Jeter levels of fame, but with the added wrinkle that he was specifically famous for playing the game the right way.

Regarding personality, I think in the 1970s ballplayers were expected to be impetuous and impulsive in a way that doesn't really apply today. More of a "go out and take it" approach to the game, as opposed to the current "play the odds and let the game come to you". I also think that, current trends notwithstanding, the "go out and take it" approach would be wildly popular today if anyone would give it a try.

Runners in the 60s and 70s were far more likely to take out the IF/C on the basepaths. Hal McCrae was also famous for that, but even superstars did it -- you did NOT want to get in the way of Frank Robinson, and the hardest hit I ever saw in person was Willie Mays absolutely annihilating Johnny Roseboro. Rose became notorious for that after the Fosse hit, but he was really one of many.

Luzinski was the first fascinatingly awful defender I ever saw so probably stuck in my memory more than deserved.

Was it James who something along the lines of "Luzinski had a swing so short he could hit a homerun in a phone booth"?
Someone did ... but whoever really should have finished with ... "and he plays left field as if he's still trapped in it."

There is a racetrack just south of Cincinnati, Turfway. Got dragged there about 20 years ago for its big race of the year. Only thing made it interesting was the old guy with 5 teeth and crazy thick drawl telling stories about what an ####### Pete Rose was. Cheated at cards and pretty much everything that involved money. Tried to #### anyones girl if she was decent looking, single or married. And to this guy the worst was if you gave him a tip on a horse and it hit Pete had total memory loss and would not share any winnings.

I suspect this is all known to everyone here. But as a kid I was fascinated.

If some guy says the #5 horse is gonna win and I'm like, what the heck, and I put 100 bucks on it to win why should I give the tipster some money? Either he bet on it and made money or he didn't bet. In which case is the guy going to cover my losses?

71: just sharing one old dudes perspective. And I am no expert on the unwritten code of degenerate horse racing gamblers

Say what you will about Pete, but this is the greatest thing in all of human existence. (Trigger Warning: Vic Tayback!)

A few comments:

1) Pete was famous enough that apparently he was the first choice for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's role in Airplane! (It was filmed during the MLB season, so Pete couldn't make the filming.

2) I honestly think he may be the smartest baseball player ever. (In terms of the game on the field, obviously not in his personal life.)

3) A coworker used to work in Cincinnati and had dealings with Pete Rose. I told him Rose was my absolute favorite player when I was a kid, but I later learned that he's just a horrible human being. My coworker told me that no matter how bad a person I thought Pete was, he's even worse.

I did a podcast with him last year, and we were practically taking bets (heh) on the exact time he would hang up on us.

but for whatever reason, he was in a (rare) great mood that day. I even took a half-hearted swipe at the gambling angle, sure he'd just swat it away (and maybe hang up). but he took it on reasonably well, something something about only being a manager at that point and still being so focused on the game. or something.

as for Ernie Banks, back in the 2000s Tiger Woods played in a golf "major" in New Jersey.

he had two notable people in his personal gallery (they got special passes so they could walk just inside the ropes, as the media does).

Ernie was almost completely unnoticed all day, which made me feel old. And I don't think I'm speaking too ill of him if I note that he had - well, the biggest ass-to-total-weight ratio I have ever seen. Even a pear in a tree would say, "wow, that's some shape on you!"

but I know you'd rather hear about the other one - his then-wife Elin.

first off, she is tiny. second, she still looked almost like a teenager - and by that I mean, all of you graduated high school with a blonde cheerleader or three that looked just like this.

on the one hand, quite attractive. on the other hand, there's a million of 'em out there (just not nearly as many as most of the male population wishes there was).

as for horse racing, yes if someone "gives you a longshot" you come over and spread him a little 'love.'

and if you win $1000 or more in a casino at a table game, yes the dealer would expect a little something something as well.

Didn't always have the bowl haircut.

The headfirst slide + running to first base on every walk (lots of walks) was what stood out at the time. I don't think anyone else in the majors did it at the time Rose did. It was sort of like Rick Barry was the only one shooting underhanded free throws (Rick Barry I remember being a jerk too, but not as much as Rose, except for when he wouldn't pass the ball to Phil Smith and Warriors lost a playoff, maybe even championship, it's been a while). Then again, the comment about Rick Barry and Rose, at the time 60-70's one wouldn't think that Rose was a bad teammate; the argument about putting himself ahead of team came along as he chased Cobb.

Also, he cared about his hitting stats and he knew them inside/out, was it 1972 shortened season (late start b/c of strike) he had 198 hits (ticked off that he didn't make 200).

I didn't know at the time that the "Charlie Hustle" nickname originally was a jibe by Mantle/Ford during an exhibition game against the Yankees. I don't recall announcers making fun or demeaning Rose for his hustle (mainly would have heard Scully, Doggett + Gowdy/Kubek; not thinking Enberg called Reds games unless exhibitions, at Holtville, yes). Quite, the contrary, he was respected for it. I don't recall columns by Jim Murray, Jon Hall or Mel Durslag bagging on Rose

As a (sort of) dodger fan, I couldn't stand him b/c he was part of the team that was usually better than the dodgers, though certainly LA went to series, I think 74, 77, 78. But, the reds won back to back

Opposite of Mike Trout in a lot of ways, including his ability to stay in the lineup.

I thought he was a much better hitter than he in fact was b/c of all the hits and he won several batting titles (4?)

I suppose post 50 is ironic/sarcastic, yeah, I couldn't stand Rose, but it does seem ironic for a player whose image was that he tried so hard to win, to get condemned for gambling. Then, again, with what's going on now, this is still news?

Yeah, he was all Star + level for 16-17 years; then the last part of his career mediocre to terrible. But, as Bill James commented about Roger Maris in '67 still good enough to start on a world championship team, at 39. Maybe they won in spite of Rose, not because of him, but they won.

The Jeter comparison, if one were made above is accurate; only I think that Rose would have been more recognizable, relatively, for the time, based on the TV appearances.

55 year old incident doesn't move the needle for me one way or the other on him. Maybe it's a testament to Rose's lasting star power that people are still talking about him decades after his exit from the game.

The only person that I never wanted to meat in case my expectations were to be squashed was Ernie Banks. So if you have bad stories keep them to yourself.

Once Ernie came to a game and didn’t say, “Let’s play two.”

Once Ernie came to a game and didn’t say, “Let’s play two.”

Well crap. He is not the man I thought he was. Changing my favorite player to (spins huge wheel with all players names on it) Lenny Dykstra....(spins again) John Rocker....(spins again) Michael Vick, what the. Forget it, I am just going to assume Ernie said it while you were in the bathroom.

I didn't know at the time that the "Charlie Hustle" nickname originally was a jibe by Mantle/Ford during an exhibition game against the Yankees.

According to Generation Z, "Charlie Hustle" was first thought up by Howard Hamlin.

Poor Howard Hamlin.
Best script writing all-time for a series: Better Call zsaul and Breaking Bad.

As for Pete Rose, don’t we all wish he would just go away.
He wont, but I can still wish.

#40 Stan Musial played it that way too and converted a pretty fair number of "normal" doubles into triples the same way. Good judge of when there was one more base on offer.

he was all Star + level for 16-17 years

If true, he would have more than 80 career WAR. Better to say 12 all-star-level years.

1965-1976: ave 5.6 WAR, worst year was 4.1
other 12 yrs: ave 1.0 WAR, best year was 3.4

#76 - wow, a Holtville reference! Haven't thought of that place in decades! One of the cool things my mom used to do was once a year in late Feb she'd get me out of school for a day and drive to Holtville, where the motto was "sweltering heat and no place to eat". In those days, few players did any kind of off season training, so it was not uncommon for the Angels players to report to camp needing to shed some pounds. Holtville was where this happened. Lots of calisthenics and running with a little bit of BP in the cages mixed in. I remember in the late 1970s standing behind the cages talking to new Angel players such as Bobby Grich and Joe Rudi as they waxed optimistically about the upcoming season.

They generally didn't play games in Holtville, that was usually for conditioning purposes only. It was on to Palm Springs for the actual games and I have many fond memories of going there with my dad and older brother, including:

1) Along about 1968, I think it was, we were at a game between the Halos and the Cubs and my brother caught a foul ball hit by none other than Ernie Banks!

2) In the 1970s we saw a lot of games with Nolan Ryan pitching, but because it was spring training, he usually didn't go very many innings and it seemed like in 4 or 5 innings he would frequently strike out 6 and walk 5, so these weren't exactly masterpieces of pitching excellence. But you could easily hear the way his fastball really popped into the catcher's mitt!

3) In March of 1985 my bro and I were on our way to a game when we drove past Cabazon along the desert highway. That's where they have the big display of dinosaurs easily visible from the freeway. We had the car stereo blasting a brand new song by a band I'd never heard of, Tears for Fears. The song, of course, was Everybody Wants to Rule the World. We did not know at that moment that we were actually driving by the location where the MTV video for the song was filmed!

4) Saw the Angels play the A's in the late 1980s and saw Mac and Canseco up close, man, were those guys massive! And this was years before Mac started his super juicing program and he was already huge. Saw them crush a couple of balls out into the parking lot, too.

5) Met Dick Enberg there a couple of times, too. Just wearing shorts and a polo shirt, enjoying the game with his wife. I seem to remember him being pretty tan, too, out there in the Palm Springs sun. Maybe not George Hamilton levels of tan, but way darker than me, that's for sure!

6) There was a beer vendor there for years who would always yell out "get yah ice cold bee-yah hee-yah!" You could hear him all over the park.

This analogy is going to break down somewhere along the way, but: The Michael Jordan documentary a couple years ago painted Jordan as a pretty rotten person who happened to be a singular talent and insanely driven to win,

How would we look at Rose if he had Mays’s skill set? How would we look at Jordan if he were only as good as, say, Alex English?

How many Rose-level jerkwads are there that top out in AA ball?

The 2020 doc made Jordan look like a pretty rotten person? Maybe to Isaiah Thomas

Jordan himself said before The Last Dance aired that a lot of his fans would wind up with a very different (and negative) opinion of him.

but I tell you, THAT is the real Jordan - warts and all. I actually like him (a little) more now. he was an absolute prick to deal with when he played.

the Jeter series - apparently produced by the same crew - has been interesting because to me, at least, Jeter comes off as petty about as often as Jordan did.

the difference?

Self-awareness.

so not sure if Jeter will ever come to grips with who he really is. I doubt it, but I will keep watching just in case.

83 Interesting; every year the cycle would begin at Holtville & Vero Beach; guess they play in AZ now.

Channel 5/Enberg for Angels; Enberg on the air w/mic asking Paul Doyle to demonstrate his pickoff move; 11/Scully for the Dodgers in LA; Farmer John; the Easternmost in quality and the westernmost in flavor. Claugherty slaughterhouse in Vernon; owed by Smithfield's (a Chinese company now) has shut down; featured in the movie "Killer of Sheep"; also maybe in "Rolling Thunder" w/Devane, Tommy Lee Jones.

84 For much of his career, was Rose a jerk as a teammate? Again, he played wherever he was asked, showed up every day. I don't know that Jeter refused to play 3b; was he in fact asked to? Rose played wherever he was asked. Is the Pinson/Robinson story above true? People are complex; Billy Martin's not regarded as a particularly nice guy, he was a flawed person, but consider this account from Artie Wilson: "When I got [to Oakland], they said they didn't have a room for me," Wilson told MiLB.com's Kevin Czerwinski in 2007. "But Billy Martin stepped up and said that he's got a roommate -- I'm his roommate. I got to know Billy quite well, and there were no problems anywhere after that." How many of you would have stood up for someone like that? I don't have the guts. You can say, well, there are other horrible things that Martin did that I would never do and that's fine also. But, again, people are complex.

Basketball is such a different sport, where one player has a tremendous influence. Russell, Bird, Magic and Jordan seemed to make their teammates better. Yes, they needed a great supporting cast, McHale, Pippen and other HOF's. But, I don't think a ballplayer has a significant fraction of the influence, Jason Heyward's locker room speech notwithstanding.

A coworker used to work in Cincinnati and had dealings with Pete Rose. I told him Rose was my absolute favorite player when I was a kid, but I later learned that he's just a horrible human being. My coworker told me that no matter how bad a person I thought Pete was, he's even worse.

When I lived in Cincy a Rose family member was a friend of a friend. I ran into her regularly at social events & would often chat with her, never about Pete, though. I didn't want to make things awkward.

Well one time we did talk about Pete. This Pete kin confirmed some really awful things about him, things I won't repeat but you can probably imagine.

And while he was wildly popular in the Queen City, there was also a constant undercurrent of shade about him too. A lot of people were turned off by the way he treated his wife, among other things.

Once Ernie came to a game and didn’t say, “Let’s play two.”

He did not have the most impeccable personal life. He was married 4 times. Married his second wife a month after divorcing his first. Upon his death, it turned out that he left all his money to his nurse, not his surviving widow.

things I won't repeat but you can probably imagine.

At this point, if I may, why the hell not?


He was married 4 times. Married his second wife a month after divorcing his first. Upon his death, it turned out that he left all his money to his nurse, not his surviving widow.

To me, of all these things, only the last seems notably bad. But even then. Maybe she was an awful human being and treated him like crap.

To me, of all these things, only the last seems notably bad.

Indeed, how is marrying someone a month after a divorce is finalized awful behavior per se?

things I won't repeat but you can probably imagine.

At this point, if I may, why the hell not?

She asked me not to repeat.

re Rick Barry:

as I recall, he was the only NBA 50 Greatest Players in attendance in Cleveland for All-Star Weekend 1996 or 1997 that was not in a great mood. mainly he just complained that no one - not even his kids (Scooter, Jon, Brent, and Drew) - copied his underhanded foul shooting.

I mean, he's not wrong probably about muscle memory repeatability or whatever. but he's just SO annoying that everyone ignores him.

only player to lead the NCAA, ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season.
ABA scoring leader in regular season (30.5 points per game) and postseason (33.5) play.
only player to reach the 50-point mark in a Game 7 of the playoffs in either league.
one of only four players to be a part of a championship team in both leagues.
All-NBA or ABA First Team 9 times in a span of 10 years.

and almost completely forgotten, and still with a chip on his shoulder at age 78.

Maybe she was an awful human being and treated him like crap.

There was quite a bit of controversy about it. Allegations of the much younger female nurse wielding undue influence over the mentally unsound Banks.

There was quite a bit of controversy about it. Allegations of the much younger female nurse wielding undue influence over the mentally unsound Banks.

I'm sure you and Misirlou know more about it than I do, but as written I just meant it really could have been anything. I mean, maybe she was doing her job as a good caregiver and Banks was just addled enough at that point to believe his waitress wanted to go out with him, etc.

Is the Pinson/Robinson story above true?

If it's not, it's certainly been repeated a lot. It's in all the bios, I think, and Rose has always told it that way -- when he was a rookie the white veterans treated him like dirt because he was threatening Blasingame's job, but the black players liked him and liked his style, and took them under his wing, to the point that the front office felt compelled to ask him to stop hanging out with them so much. It's why Rose became determined to never treat a young player the way the white vets treated him. Posnanski's book says everybody he interviewed on the 1975 team has a story about how much Rose did for them when they joined the team.

Rose played wherever he was asked.

The key word being "asked." Don Heffner moved him to 3B in 1966 to make room for Tommy Helms, and Rose rebelled and complained and eventually got moved back to 2B. He always said it was because Heffner ordered him rather than asking him. When he agreed to move to the OF for Dave Bristol the next year and then to 3B for Sparky in 1975, it was because they asked him.

Rose played wherever he was asked.

not sure if this was new, but in the Jeter series he says he got a call from George asking if he would object to the Yankees acquiring A-Rod.

Jeter replied that he wouldn't say he objected even if he did - then added in passing that George said, "We'd be bringing in A-Rod to replace [injured, out for 2004] Aaron Boone at third base."

94. Barry was a great player, certainly a scorer; did not realize he was much of playmaker until looking up on wikipedia and seeing he got 500 assists for the Rockets. It's been longer ago that I read Tales of a Basketball Gypsy than I saw Sleeper so I don't have much Barry's insightfulness into the game (book probably co-written w/Bill Libby, anyway); not much of a defender or rebounder, if I recall. He has a point about the underhand shooting; suggestions were to have Shaq try it (should have had Chris Dudley do it; he was worse than Shaq at the line; or Wilt, instead of standing at the back of the circle). If Barry's grouchy, well, he has his way of looking at the world. Your post prompted me to look up whether the no passing story was apocryphal; I found this which I find extraordinarily interesting, not for the video itself, but that Barry himself appears to have posted in the comments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjHa6_ZIuB0

Also, dig the Barry trivia; I was going to call you out b/c I had just read Bob Petit had scored 50 in a decisive game (curious about Russell's opponents on that Hawks team), but it was a game 6

95, 96. Always a suspicion when a caregiver inherits over relatives; I thought someone on here posted or linked to a story about someone trying to write a biography/co-write auto-biography w/Banks and that Banks would not keep appointments, and perhaps hints at that he was declining cognitively.

97 Thanks; makes me have a higher opinion of Rose as a player/teammate that he stood up for his fellow players and that he treated young players well.
98. Maybe they can do a seance (just not on a wet afternoon) to get Boss George's take.

Look, society was different 55 years old. We are talking about the early 70s. The age of hippies and free love. This #### was going on everywhere. Hell, ZZ Top wrote a love song about a 13-year-old girl.

All of this stuff needs to be judged within the context it occurred. Society is far more puritanical now than it's been in a long time.

> However being married, having kids, being an adult and having sex with a 16 year old(like he's claiming) is still all sorts of wrong, no matter how you look at it.

Look up Roger Clemens