Remebering the life and legacy of Pete Rose

Craig Way opens Hour 2 with his thoughts on the passing of baseball's all-time hit leader Pete Rose.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Craig Way alongside at Cameron Parker, the producer, and this
is a Texas Tuesday and a Texan Tuesday. Coming up
in a few minutes, we'll talk football in the lone
Star State, both of the collegiate and high school variety
with Greg Tepper, managing editor of Dave Campbell's Texas Football Magazine.
So we'll do that coming up later this hour. Some

(00:22):
comments from Texas men's basketball coach Rodney Terry. Now, full
team workouts are underway. There's a media availability today and
we have some sound from that as well in the
four o'clock hour, or Baseball Conversation as we visit with
Gene Watson, our MLB insider to let you know what's
going on his thoughts as well on these postseason series.

(00:47):
Right now, the Detroit Tigers lead to Houston Ashers three
to nothing bottom of the fifth. Derek Schouogle is still
on the mount for Detroit, so one out in the
bottom of the fi inning. As the Tigers lead the
Astros Game one of that best of three series. They
lead it by score of three to nothing. They scored
three runs in the top of the second al fromer Valdez,

(01:10):
who was No.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Longer in the ballgame.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
He left after just over four innings, and Hector and
Arris got them out of trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
In the fifth.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yesterday, it was after we left air when we found
out that Pete Rose had passed away. And Rose, of course,
on the field. On the field one of the greatest players,
if not the greatest, certainly the greatest hitter probably of
all time, all time hit leader four th two and

(01:41):
fifty six, three h three lifetime batting average, had incredible,
incredible numbers. He had what many are called a complicated
existence because of all of the troubles off the field
that began when he was a player manager and that

(02:04):
included his time, you know, when he was just the manager,
as well the betting on baseball. He signed the agreement
accepting the lifetime ban from baseball A Bartlett Jamatti. The commissioner,
said he could apply for reinstatement within a year. Jamati
died three days after all that. This announcement all came down,

(02:27):
and then the Hall of Fame Committee and Major League
Baseball Committee refused to reinstate him after that, and the
Baseball writers also would not vote. So it's made him
very polarizing. A lot of folks feel that the numbers
he belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Certainly the
numbers do that. It was all of the other indiscretion things.
Tim Sullivan, who covered him for years both as a

(02:48):
player and a manager the Cincinnati Inquirer, the daily newspaper
in Cincinnati, said that he believed that posthumously, ultimately Rose
would wind up in the Hall of Fame, though he
didn't necessarily, he felt deserve it based on the constant

(03:11):
harangue of lies and denials all the way up to
two thousand and four. Jim Reeves, longtime Texas Rangers beat
writer and columnists for the Fourth Star Telegram, had a
post today and I wanted to read this because some
of this reflects how I feel about this, and there's

(03:31):
some differences as well, But here's what he had to say.
He said, I have a special request for you today.
Forget and forgive. Forget the Pete Rose we've seen for
the last three decades hawking his signature while never for
a moment giving a rat's ass about the adoring fans
who sought it like some sort of holy grail. Forget
that former Cincinnati roommate and Rangers manager Pat Corrales told

(03:54):
Texas reporters that Rose was the most selfish man he
ever played with, and remember that he also had it.
But there's no one I'd rather have on my team.
Pete Rose was a walking contradiction. He became everything we
found distasteful about sports while epitomizing everything we loved. Whitey
four disdainfully called in Charlie Huss when he ran the
first base after drawing a walk. But the nickname stuck

(04:14):
because that's exactly who Rose was. So let's forget and
instead remember. No one played the game harder than Rose.
No one not only played the game harder than Pete Rose.
No one seemed to care more about winning. No one
turned in a dirty uniform after every game like Rose did.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
No one ever hit like he did.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
He played the game like the best player on your
little league team, with an irre insuppressible love he couldn't
have hidden even if he'd wanted to.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
He was the guy who'd.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Line a single and turned it into a triple with
a trademark at first dive in the third. He was
the guy who smashed and to catcher Ray Fosse at
home play so hard in an All Star Game. Fossy's
career would never be the same. He was as graceful
as a sledgehammer, built like a running back slamming off
tackle on third and one. So, at least for today,
let's remember him that way. Let's remember the baseball player,

(05:09):
not the manager who gambled on baseball and many other
things and lied about it for almost two decades until
he saw a profit in a semi confession so he
could sell a book. Forget the man whose sexual appetite
for younger women, sometimes way too young, kept him on
the knife's edge of trouble for much of his life.
Forget the ex con, the defiance in the face of

(05:30):
his life, for the liar of the defiance for truth,
who couldn't seem to understand how he self immolated his
dream of a Hall of Fame plaque. For today, let's
simply remember the baseball player. They all start five different positions.
Let's remember the man who was at his best when
the game was on the line, the one who played

(05:51):
on three World Series teams. He just might have been
the best Wes we've ever seen. I agree with the
vast major plar of what Jim reeves wrote there, he
was so great, was so much of how he played
the game, that that also then convinces a lot of

(06:16):
baseball fans to forget all of the things that counted
against him for baseball, not only how he gambled on baseball,
but how he lied about it for two decades.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
There were teammates of his who said, we believed.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Him when he told us later that he had never
met on baseball, And then fifteen years later, when he
was out to sell a book, he had been and
he did it, and then they said we're done with
him somewhere.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
But the day before he died, he.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Was at an autograph exhibition in Nashville, was several former teammates,
Johnny Bench, Dave concepts he owned, among others. So there
is some forgetting and there is some forgiving going on
of Pete Rose. The ultimate forgiveness will be if he
winds up in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But we'll
see if the forgive and forget is on the mind

(07:11):
to make those decisions down the road. Up next, we'll
talk some football, as we'll visit with Greg Temper, managing
editor of Dave Campbell's Texas Football Magazine. When we continue
on Sports Radio AM thirteen under the Zone, any iHeartRadio
app