That they were. The Big Red Machine. The Great Eight. That 1975 team won 108 games and beat the Boston Red Sox in a spirited seven-game World Series — five decades ago.
And Pete Rose was in the epi-center of it. Pete Rose was in the center of everything, be it baseball or be it on-the-field controversies or gambling.
Not only was he a dogged competitor, he had an appreciation for the beauty of baseball.
In Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, the game was tied in extra innings, a back-and-forth game. As he stepped into the batter’s box in the 10th inning, Rose turned toward Boston catcher Carlton Fisk and said, “This is some kind of game, ain’t it?”
Rose collected 210 hits, batted .317 with 47 doubles and 112 runs scored that ’75 season... in other words, a typical Rose season.
There was no in-between for fans on Rose — he was either worshipped for his all-around ability and car-crash hustle or despised for his brashness and disregard for an opponent’s feelings.
As the singing group Poison sang it, ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn.’
Pete Rose carried several large thorns, especially his permanent banishment for betting on baseball. His gambling roots were deep, implanted when his father, Harry, took him to River Downs before he was 10 years old.
He loved to gamble, loved the action. He spent spring training nights at Derby Lane Greyhound Park in St. Petersburg, Fla., and wagered large wads of cash on each race, affecting the odds on his choice, while the rest of us wagered $2 a race.
He once even bet $50 on me in a tennis match against former Phillies outfielder/broadcaster Richie Ashburn. I lost, but Pete laughed it off.
And he was an incessant womanizer, something not uncommon among major league players in that era.
But if you could flush those foibles out of your mind and focus on the man as a baseball player, he was the Hope Diamond for baseball writers.
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
His brashness stood out in 1978 when he put together a National League record 44-game hitting streak and was pounding his way toward Joe DiMaggio’s all-time record 56 game streak.
But on a hot August night in Atlanta/Fulton County stadium, Braves relief pitcher Gene Garber ended the streak in the ninth inning by striking out Rose with a 3-and-2 slider.
Rose was apoplectic about that at bat.
“Garber was pitching like it was the seventh game of the World Series,” said Rose. When told of Rose’s remark, Garber replied, “I had an idea Pete was hitting like it was the last game of the World Series.”
Indeed, he was. To Rose, every at bat was like Game 7 of the World Series. If he had three hits, he wanted four. If he had four hits he wanted five. On that night against Garber he wanted just one.
And Morgan once said to Rose, “You’d run over your grandma if she got in your way.”
Indeed, he famously ran over two guys that put a mark on Rose as deep as a tattoo.
In 1970’s All-Star game in Riverfront Stadium, he bulldozed Cleveland catcher Ray Fosse to score the winning run. Fosse suffered a fractured shoulder and was never the same.
Credit: Uncredited
Credit: Uncredited
The night before the game, Rose hosted Fosse in his home for dinner. But on the field, breaking bread and breaking for home are different matters.
In 1973’s National League playoffs, Rose barrel-rolled into 160-pound New York Mets shortstop Bud ‘Twiggy’ Harrelson trying to break up a double play and nearly break Harrelson in half.
It incited a near-riot in Shea Stadium. After the fifth-inning brawl was cleared, Rose took his place in left field and was bombarded with fruit and trash. Manager Sparky Anderson took the team off the field.
“I’m not a dirty player, I just play hard,” said Rose. But there was an ulterior motive. The night before Mets pitcher Jon Matlack held the Reds to two hits and Harrelson made light of the Reds offense, which was relayed to Rose.
“When you weigh 160 pounds and are playing in an important post-season game, it might be best to keep your mouth shut,” said Rose.
So, as captain of The Big Red Machine, Rose decided to nearly start his own War of the Roses to uphold the honor of his compadres.
But, no matter if you were from the New York Times or the New Bremen Banner, if you asked Rose one question, poise your pen quickly because he was going to fill your spiral notebooks with pithy quotes, humorous remarks and right-on statistics.
It was the New York Yankees’ Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle who first called him Charlie Hustle, but they did it disparagingly when they saw him sprint to first base on a spring training walk.
But it stuck and it was a positive nickname.
As Henry Aaron once said at an All-Star game, “Rose came into the clubhouse and took off his shoes and the shoes ran another mile.”
And those shoes, mostly black with no logos as club president Bob Howsam required, carried Rose to 4,256 hits, most likely a record never to be overtaken.
For a player to match it, he would have to get 200 hits for 20 straight years and that still would leave him 256 hits short.
Few players get 200 hits once in their career and even fewer play for more than 20 years.
So the legacy of Peter Edward Rose, the hits, the hustle, the on-field controversies and the even more controversial events off the field, will live on, whether or not he ever is enshrined in Cooperstown.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
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