Pete Rose and Complicated Legacies

I was born in Kentucky. My family roots are found in Appalachia, in fact Breathitt County, the place J.D. Vance wrote about in Hillbilly Elegy. In the 1950’s, many of my family decided they had seen enough of Jackson and Hazard and the coal mining towns in that area and relocated to the economic promised land of Cincinnati.

When I was 5 years old, my then 22 year old mother followed her parents to Florida at a time when the only Major League Baseball to be found was during the Grapefruit League. Since there was no team there to root for, I fell in line as a dutiful, and at times thoroughly cursed, Reds fan.

Baseball was a big thing in my family. My grandmother, thanks to a genetic condition, slowly lost her hearing. She was listening to a Reds radio broadcast when her hearing finally failed for good. It was the last thing she ever heard. And boy she was quite the fan. She could recite line ups from the Big Red Machine with ease. Her all time favorite player was Frank Robinson.

I remember poring over the Reds box scores in the sports section of the Orlando Sentinel with my Papaw. We didn’t get to watch a whole bunch of games except for a handful of years we actually had cable TV and could watch the Reds when they were on TBS and WGN.

Papaw’s favorite player was Pete Rose. And why not really? Pete was blue collar. Wasn’t an athletic specimen by any stretch of the imagination. But he hustled! He busted his ass. He worked harder than everyone else and it showed on the field. I remember the first time I saw Pete Rose sprint to first base on a walk. Papaw told me it was going to happen and when Rose took off I remember the smirk of amusement and a muted pride on Papaw’s face.

In 1985, at nine years old, my mom took me on a road trip that included a stop in Cincinnati for a few days to visit with family. Pete was a little less than three weeks away from breaking Ty Cobb’s all time hits record. The moment we pulled into the city you could feel the electricity of anticipation on the street. Countdown signs were everywhere. And On August 23rd, 1985, I got to go to my first regular season MLB Game as the Reds hosted the Cubs.

I remember everything about it. The tickets were $6 a piece and we were in the “Red Seats”, which meant upper deck at Riverfront Stadium. I remember being struck by the scale of the place. The bright green of the AstroTurf. The giant yellow foul pole that partially obstructed our view. How tiny the ball looked from that far away. What I was wearing, including a plastic, replica Red’s batting helmet since I didn’t actually own a real baseball cap yet. I remembered a pair of overserved and obnoxious Cubs fans sitting in front of us. I remember the old electronic, 8 bit, scoreboard. I remember the smell.

And I remember Pete Rose scored after being knocked in by Nick Esasky. He went 1 for 4 that night, The Reds would walk it off in the 9th when Ron Oester led off with a triple and would be knocked in by pinch hitter, Cesar Cedeno. John Franco got the 3-2 win.

Pete Rose became a hero to me. And then, by the time I was a teenager, he was staring down the barrel of a lifetime ban from baseball. It broke my heart to see one of my heroes fall from grace in such an epic manner. But I never stopped loving Pete Rose for the way he played the game. I mean, he sprinted to first base on a walk just in case the fielders made a mistake and he was in position to take an extra base. He fought people. He ran them over. And when a Yankee legend derisively called him, “Charlie Hustle,” he wore the moniker with honor. This man did not care one little bit what his haters thought of him. And his city LOVED him for it.

And they never stopped loving him. They never stopped advocating for him.

And now he’s gone.

I could wax philosophical for several thousand more words about the hypocrisy of MLB keeping Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame, but I will spare you minus one point. There is a sports book located at Great American Ballpark so that fans can bet on the game they are watching that day. Other than that, I will not debate you on whether he should be in the hall, just think you are stupid if you disagree. And like Pete, I won’t give a single… care… what you think of me. So there is no point in debating that here.

I do not blame the media for struggling with how to cover his death, which seemed to take them by surprise. I first heard it from Buzz Brockway via text. My heart sank as I searched Twitter and found confirmation. ESPN would not mention it until Eduardo Perez, Tony’s son, who had been giving commentary on the final Mets-Braves Game, broke the news to a stunned anchor back in the studio. Their coverage took them another hour to pull together and it went from hit-king to banned for life in almost the same sentence.

Such is the struggle with people with complicated legacies.

And so that juxtaposition of someone who was so incredibly great in one aspect of their life, but so terrible in others, has me thinking.

First, I am grateful that the media isn’t sugar coating the story of Pete Rose. It serves no one to leave out the warts.

Second, I wonder why some others don’t get the same treatment. I don’t have to name names, you just had to be paying attention during my last term in office. Some people have complicated legacies. It isn’t disrespectful to Pete Rose to talk about his, but for some reason, it is still taboo to talk about someone else’s.

Lastly, no one stopped loving Pete Rose when we all found out that he broke the cardinal rule of baseball. People were willing to line up around the block to pay him $300 to autograph a baseball as recently as the day before he died. And no one felt it was disrespectful, or a lie, to tell the whole story the same day that he left us.

Pete Rose, for all of his faults and errant nature, has my eternal admiration in spite of the fact that he was no role model at all in the majority of his life. His time on the Reds allowed me to connect with my grandparents in a way that would not have happened without him. His play, his grit, determination, work ethic… you cannot deny those things just because he was an absolute reprobate in other aspects of life.

Such is the struggle with people with complicated legacies. Which turns out to not really be a struggle at all. We don’t stop loving our heroes even when we know they really aren’t good people.

“I’m with Pete, give me $200 on the Reds.”