Oct. 11, 2007
Rose in semi-bloom: There’s no crying in—or out of—baseball
By STEVE FRIESS
If you want to, you can view the whole thing as sad or pathetic.
I arrive at the Forum Shops, whether I realize it or not, with
just that perspective. Pete Rose disabuses me pretty quickly
of that notion.
Really, though, who could blame me? It is difficult not to
bring your sympathy with you to meet a man of this stature and
accomplishment who has been forced to turn himself into a living
cardboard cutout to make a living. His former teammates are
mentoring the next generations to championships as managers
or raking in dough as commentators or, if nothing else, slipping
away from their wives by passing their days on the world’s great
golf courses. Rose, banned for life from Major League Baseball
in 1989 for betting on games, has to do this?
But the first thing I see at the Field of Dreams shop is the
line out the door leading to a smiling Rose, holding a ready
pen to sign purchases and chatting amiably with a 50-something
tourist who wonders whom Rose likes for this year’s World Series.
Rose sits here for more than 75 hours a month in his white
Air Jordan cap mugging for pictures and signing his name for
folks who pay $99 for an autographed ball or hat and $199 for
an autographed jersey. Behind him looms a backdrop featuring
a montage of images of him in his Charlie Hustle, Ty Cobb-displacing,
sliding-headfirst-into-third, Big-Red-Machine prime.
As odd as it might sound, Rose seems to be having fun. You
know that because there’s even a $299 option to have Rose sign
on a ball, “I’m sorry I bet on baseball.” Really.
“It’s fun for me because my demographics is so good,” says
Rose, as we grab lunch at the bar at Sushi Roku so he can keep
an eye on the Indians-Yankees game. “A couple of things amaze
me about this gig. One is the number of kids who come in. They’ve
never seen me play, they’ve only been told by their moms and
dads how I played the game. And two, a lot of my customers are
women because we’re in the No. 1 mall in the country. Women
buy for their grandpas, their dads, their husbands and their
kids. It’s right up my alley.”
I believe him, sort of. I believe he is enjoying, not merely
enduring, these sessions. Not that this is what he’d be doing
today were it not for all of the scandal, but I believe he does
not wish to present himself as unhappy or wistful. I believe
that, both having ignored the calls for him to come clean for
years and then having finally confessed his sins in 2004 only
to find himself in precisely the same place, Rose is no longer
interested in trying to figure out how to fix the broken parts
of his life. It can’t be an accident when he grabs my microphone
and amuses his crowd by crooning, “I did it my-y-y way.”
“You want to know the absolute truth, I quit worrying about
it,” Rose says. “The Hall of Fame would be the absolute greatest
honor any player can ever be given, but I have a young family
to provide for. I don’t have time to sit around and cry and
worry what Bud Selig’s going to do.” Sit around and cry? Naw.
But when asked, Rose forthrightly admits he’s sick of being
the ultimate prodigal son, the one never allowed to return home
despite the fact that others are now doing far more violence
to the “integrity of the game” than he ever did.
That frustration is obvious when discussion turns to homer-king-with-an-asterisk
Barry Bonds: “I don’t want to speculate because a guy gained
35 pounds, or because a guy got muscles or because a guy’s head
grows or because a guy never hit 50 home runs and all of a sudden
he did. I’m not going to speculate on all that. They put an
investigator on me who used to work against the guys in the
Mafia. I don’t know what kind of investigation [Former Sen.]
George Mitchell’s doing, I don’t know how involved he is in
all that, I don’t know.”
So it’s a little unconvincing that his own interminable punishment
doesn’t eat at Rose. But here in Las Vegas, he finds the salve
that soothes the wounds of his dishonor. He lost his livelihood
and reputation over gambling, and yet in gambling’s capital
his spirits can be renewed and memories of his greatness may
remain alive as he meets fan after fan, virtually every one
of whom informs him of their support and their annoyance at
the injustice he continues to suffer. And, in a nod to the scandal
that brought him such grief, he vows not to play table games
in casinos. If you catch him doing so, he says, tap him on the
shoulder and he’ll give you a $100 bill.
“People forget there’s not a bunch of altar boys in the Hall
of Fame, but I’m the one that did the crime of all crimes, I
gambled,” he says. “Ain’t that funny, we’re sitting here in
Las Vegas sayin’ that?”
Not funny at all. Makes perfect sense, actually. Where else,
really, would virtually everyone around agree that there are
worse things you can do than place a few bets?
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