Pete Rose
Pete Rose: The Undeniable Truth Thousands upon thousands of men have been scouted, drafted, played, and even managed in Major League Baseball. Yet, a name, synonymous with numerous records, is mostly associated with controversy. Enter Peter Edward “Pete” Rose Sr. Pete Rose grew up in a middle class family, struggled as a student, and then eventually excelled as a baseball player/manager. Even though Pete Rose lived for the sport and broke so many records during his professional career, it was his off-the-field behavior which led to his being banished from baseball and probably the Baseball Hall of Fame. Born on the morning of April 14, 1941 to Harry and LaVerne Rose, Pete was given a pretty typical war-time upbringing of hard work and dysfunction. He was the oldest of four children and spent most of his childhood in Anderson Ferry, Ohio (Rose and Kahn 40-43). “There’s only one person [who’s] really influenced me, and that was my dad,” Pete said (qtd. in Rose and Kahn 44). Harry Rose died a sudden, unexpected death on December 9, 1970 at the age of 58. The family basically lost the stitching of their relationship when Harry died. Pete’s brother and sisters weren’t as close as they were when their dad was alive, and LaVerne eventually remarried. “There’s nothing wrong with crying when there’s something to cry about and when Dad died so sudden[ly], I [must have] cried for three days.”(qtd. in Rose and Kahn 45) As he grew up, all Pete cared about was sports. Sports affected Pete to the point where he performed poorly in school. He may have not been the most intelligent person in the class, but sports played a hand in diverting his attention in a different way. Pete’s performance in ninth grade was so bad, his teacher sought him to attend summer school. Harry Rose held him out of summer school; he said that he would rather Pete repeat a year of school than missing out on a summer of baseball (Reston, Jr. 37). Since his studies were so poor, Pete
Cited: Pete Rose Statistics - Baseball-Reference.com. Sports Reference, Inc. 4 November 2006. <http://www.baseball-reference.com/r/rosepe01.shtml> Erardi, John. "Sept. 11, 1985: Cincinnati 's favorite son becomes baseball 's Hit King with No. 4,192 ." The Cincinnati Enquirer. Cincinnati, Ohio 22 September 2002. <http://reds.enquirer.com/farewell/09222002_cinmoment1.html>. ESPN.com - MLB - Pete Rose. ESPN Internet Ventures. 4 November 2006. <http://sports.espn.go.com/mlbhist/alltime/playercard?playerId=11901&type=0>. The Baseball Archive Presents: The Dowd Report. The Baseball Archive. 6 November 2006. < http://www.baseball1.com/bb-data/rose/dowd/dowd_toc.html> Reston, Jr, James. Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Rose, Sr., Pete and Kahn, Roger. Pete Rose: My Story. New York: Macmillan, 1989. Sokolove, Michael. Hustle: The Myth, Life, Lies of Pete Rose. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.