Former Cincinnati Reds player Pete Rose waves to fans after being introduced during the Reds Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, July 15, 2023, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo | Darron Cummings, File)
By Steve Stout
Urbana Daily Citizen
When I was a kid, Pete Rose was my hero.
I had several of his posters hanging on the walls of my bedroom, and I used a Pete Rose model bat in Little League.
My dad and I attended at least 20 Reds’ games per season, starting in 1969 when the team still played at Crosley Field.
There is a framed photo in my office of me getting Rose’s autograph near the Reds’ dugout prior to the last game ever played at Crosley Field on June 24, 1970.
I didn’t know the photo even existed until I saw it published in a book about 20 years ago.
I still have the Rose autograph I received that day, along with several more I obtained through the years.
Rose – who died earlier this week at the age of 83 – started many of the games I attended at Crosley Field – and later at Riverfront Stadium – with a single up the middle to get things going for the Big Red Machine.
I was devastated when Rose left the Reds via free agency after the 1978 season, and he led his new team, the Philadelphia Phillies, to a world title in 1980.
It was a thrill when I finally got to talk to Rose as a 16-year-old reporter in 1980 while covering the Reds for this newspaper.
I got to know him even better when he came back to manage the Reds late in the 1984 season.
And while I was in awe being able to sit and talk to him in his office at Riverfront Stadium, something was amiss.
There always seemed to be some guys hanging around in his office who weren’t employees of the Reds and also weren’t members of the media.
They would be using the telephone in Rose’s office, calling sports memorabilia collectors around the country and offering Rose’s game-worn jerseys, jackets, cleats, caps and bats for sale at very high prices.
When Sports Illustrated broke the story in 1989 that Rose had been betting on baseball games, I wasn’t a bit surprised.
I had seen enough strange behavior in the clubhouse to know that Rose was probably going to get himself in trouble.
I even mentioned it to him one day, and he said: “Who’s going to touch me? I’m Pete Rose.”
Rose was later banned from baseball permanently and spent time in prison for tax evasion for not declaring money he had earned from doing autograph shows.
After denying it for years, he eventually admitted he had bet on baseball including games involving the Reds, but said he always bet on his team to win.
Rose is the all-time hits leader in baseball history and batted .303 lifetime.
As a player, he was a Hall of Famer.
But as a manager, he broke baseball’s cardinal rule, a rule he was very aware of, and he knew that breaking it would cause his expulsion from the game.
Yet he did it anyway.
Major League Baseball, like all other pro sports, has unfortunately become way too cozy with gambling in recent years, so maybe Rose still has a chance to make it to the Hall of Fame.
Urbana Daily Citizen sports editor Steve Stout began covering the Reds at a very young age when Rose was a player and later a player/manager. Stout was fortunate to have a front-row seat to Rose’s career and what led to his banishment from baseball. The Daily Citizen is an AIM Media Midwest newspaper and sister publication to the Sentinel-Tribune.
Reach Steve Stout at 652-1331 (ext. 1776) or at [email protected]
