Tampa, Florida					Monday, September 06, 2010

Rose In Final Hustle for Hall of Fame Spot
Tuesday, January 6, 2004
TAMPA—At a Tampa Sports Awards Banquet during the prime of Pete Rose and the Big Red Machine, who then spring trained in Tampa, as emcee in the Downtown Hyatt ballroom, I introduced Rose for a comment. He began: “Putting a tuxedo on Tom McEwen is like putting ear rings on a hog.’’ Brought down the house of 1,000, including Reds Manager Sparky Anderson. Rose, now back in the news, has always loved the putdown and being putdown, to play baseball, the horse and dog races and betting there, lovely women, and the underdog, locker room-banter, an audience and the limelight. Pete was always quick with a quip, always ambitious. We have been associated through his good time and bad times, from the moment he arrived in this place to begin his career with the Reds’ farm team in the Florida State League to his all-star and Hall of Fame playing career with the Reds and in the bigs. That most troubled of times in the spring of 1989, as the manager of the Reds then the majors were investigating, at the Plant City training facilities, I approached him for an interview, after the workout. He came into his bare office there, sat on an iron folding chair behind a cheap desk, stark naked but with a towel around his lower half, a glob of foaming shampoo in his hair and said I knew him too well to believe what some were saying about gambling. I knew he gambled like all getout—it is legal at authorized pari-mutuel horse, dog and jai-alai plants in Florida, but if he said he never get on baseball, or on the Reds, or from the clubhouse, I believed him, even if some of his old pals snickered when told that. In fact, one of the last times I saw him was at River Downs near Cincinnati. And his pals were bettors, indeed, his best Tampa friend, was then Mario Nunez, now deceased, who was the dining room boss at Tampa Bay Downs, the horse track Grantland Rice loved so and that was previously known as Sunshine Park and Florida Downs. Nunez was a little man with a high voice who kept me abreast of Pete during his big league days, and so close to Rose as—well, when he could take anybody to the White House to meet President Jimmy Carter, there beside Rose and the president was—Mario. Loyalty was an upside. Heck, he was always available to me or Jim Selman of the Tampa Tribune in those years for interviews, anywhere, anytime, and always touted us as among the best when he was with the bigger citified writers. That characteristic, loyalty to old Tampa friends, was a plus for most all of the Reds of those days, notably the incomparable Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, and, of course, Sparky Anderson. But, Rose also said in 1989: “I’d be willing to bet you, if I was a betting man, that I have never bet on baseball.’’ I suppose the biggest question nagging all of us is why he was untruthful for so long and now, why has he recanted and admitted to the first mortal sin of baseball. Well, we who know him well believe he does what he does when he does because he believes it is right for Charley Hustle. He will make money on the book now out, “My Prison Without Bars,’’ which changes his denial stories, even those in a previous book written with the honorable Roger Kahn (Boys of Summer) who says he feels betrayed. Pete likely believes it is also his only course to Heaven on Earth, the Baseball of Fame. A candidate has only 20 years to make it, on the decision of the baseball writers. and Pete only has two to go. If the Baseball Writers of America, an organization sports writers who have been a BWA member for 10 years, vote. By the way, you cannot become a BWA member until you have	a major league franchise in your area to cover—like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who have not yet been alive 10 years. After the writers opportunity angle, the only Hall of Fame recourse is through a veterans’ route, meaning the existing members of the Hall vote. Many now—like Bob Feller and Robin Roberts, said they could never vote for Rose, with the gambling discoveries. The baseball writers vote subjectively. The candidates are judged without qualification. In the Pro Football Hall of Fame system—I am on a committee of about 40 with votes, we are told only to consider that which happens in football action. I voted for New York Giant linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who was scandalous off the field, when the lawyers to the panel said his outside misdeeds should not be counted. Tampa Tribune baseball writer Joe Henderson, in line to become a voter for baseball, said “the name appears, you vote as you vote. There are no guidelines. It is entirely subjective.’’ That would suggest Rose’s best chances are with the writers in the next two years. The public would vote him in tomorrow, polls show. He was that great on the field—most hits in history, 4,256, six World Series, matchless in desire and spirit. But away from the game, untamed. If the writers do not vote him in, then the members of the Hall are the only recourse. Chances are slim that they will vote in his favor. The baseball writers may, on the plank that he made it on the field, between the lines, if not outside of them. It is a popular and understandable position. However, there is not a baseball clubhouse anywhere that does not declare it a rule violation to bet on baseball. None. Veteran Famer Al Lopez said he believes Rose deserves to be in the Hall for his baseball play, but baseball will have to decide the other matters. Well, baseball, at least its series of commissioners are the ones who barred him. Clearly none of them wanted him in the Hall at Cooperstown. Rose says he’s sorry. Sorry, he bet. Sorry he denied he did, now. He has admitted to Commissioner Bud Selig now he did, and on baseball, on his Reds. And he has now written that new book about it which will sell big numbers, publishers say. Will he get in? Most believe he will. Not me. The confession will be good for his soul but not for his salvation in baseball. Enough writers will question his motives, this time, I think, for the no vote. And that very aggressive and swagger spirit that made him the great player he was, is now working against him, I think. He is precisely named, Charley Hustle. Why years ago when he was with the old Tampa minor league team, if we got any of his statistics wrong, by any margin, he came to the office to protest. He vigorously read what was written about him and what was reported. When he was chasing the Ty Cobb record for the most hits, a New York writer who figured himself to be top of the line, asked for a friend on the Cincinnati newspaper who knew Rose well to set up an interview before a game. Fine. It was done. In the New York account written the next day, the writer said Rose knew all of the facts about Cobb except his hat size. Rose had actually quoted all statistics about Cobb, but saying he did not now the size of his privates. The writer took the license to say “hat size.’’ The next day, the Cincinnati writer later told me, Rose ran out on to the field with the story in the New York paper yelling, “seven and a quarter. That’s what it was! SEVEN AND A QUARTER!’’ ##
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