There are names and there are those names. Pete Rose had one of those names. Pete Rose. Larry Bird. Elvis. Walter Payton. Tom Seaver. Willie Nelson. Alicia Keys. Those names. The ones that transcend and become symbols of a time and place and feeling. Names that keep folks younger and always leaves them with a smile.
Yes, Pete Rose bet on baseball. He has been denied a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Some are sympathetic. Or should I now say they were sympathetic. Either way, there is not a room or a building or a town that can hold all that Pete Rose meant to so many of us. Admittedly, I am not much of a Hall of Fame person. I have never been to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, though I have been through Canton more than a dozen times. On Interstate 90 in upstate New York, I have passed the exit to Cooperstown more than a dozen times. I have been drawn to neither. I can’t tell you why.
Maybe my mind is my hall of fame. Maybe my memory is my hall of fame. I was able to see Pete Rose play and the Big Red Machine play when I was a kid. Thankfully, we had a friend in the town we lived in that had season tickets in the green seats of Riverfront Stadium along the third base line. We never missed a summer not going in the 1970s. Watching Pete Rose bend down with that crouched batting stance was, in itself, worth walking through the turnstile at Riverfront for.
In the 1980s when Pete was a player-manager for the Reds, we saw those teams too. Yes, another friend had season tickets, and we never missed a summer not seeing the Reds in the 1980s. It wasn’t until the 1990s that I had to pay to see the Reds play. I did.
I got this scorecard at the last game I saw at Riverfront Stadium. I couldn’t tell you why I have always known where it was to put my hands on. I have never thought about that, until today.
When I was in the third grade playing kickball during PE class at Brownstown Central Elementary School, I kicked a one-hop line drive to the pitcher. The pitcher threw it quickly to first and I was out in a hurry. However, I ran as hard as I could to first base anyway. On my way back to my team standing against one wall of the gym, Miss Ault, our PE teacher, stopped me and told me I didn’t have to run that out. I told her if Pete Rose is going to run them out, I am too.
I’m not going to be able to tell you in a year where I was when I heard Pete Rose died. Elvis? Yes, I can show you where I was standing, one foot on parking lot and one foot on grass going to watch my dad’s high school football team practice. Elvis was 42. I was 9. Pete was 83. I am 56. There is a correlation there and we all know that. I never saw Elvis. But did I ever love watching Pete Rose play baseball.
Speaking the rights…
Danny Johnson