The Love of Baseball by Chris Arvidson

Author:Chris Arvidson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2017-07-17T04:00:00+00:00

Pete Rose Way

L.C. FIORE

Pete Rose Way follows the Ohio River, past new condominiums and Yeatman’s Cove, before flushing into Great American Ballpark, home of the Cincinnati Reds.

Peter Edward Rose is a native son, raised on the city’s West Side. He was a 17-time All-Star, three-time World Series Champion, Most Valuable Player, and Rookie of the Year. He owns the record for the most career hits: 4,256. And in 1989, he was banned from the game for life, for betting on baseball.

Almost 30 years later, Pete Rose Way remains.

What you’ll hear around Cincy, of course, if you ask even the most casual baseball fan, is that while Rose bet on baseball, he never bet against himself. For citizens of the Queen City, and Reds fans in general, this changes the color of the crime. If he never bet against himself, he never had reason to throw a game. Any gambler worth his salt would never have taken those odds anyway. “Charlie Hustle” played in more winning games than any player, ever: 1,972.

Growing up in a town that named a major right-of-way for an athlete before his career was finished, and then refused to change the name of the street after that athlete had been found guilty of basically the worst crime you can commit as a ballplayer, can’t help but affect your point of view. Nationally there are strong feelings on both sides of the issue of whether Rose should one day be inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. For me, like most Cincinnatians, the answer is clear: of course he should. Ty Cobb claimed to have killed a man, for Christ’s sake, or so the legend goes, and he’s got a plaque in Cooperstown.

For more or less my entire life, I’ve driven a route named after my hometown’s biggest hero. He isn’t the prettiest guy or the smoothest talker. He hit singles, which aren’t very sexy. And even after admitting all the gambling allegations were true, he’s unrepentant. And yet. Driving to the ballpark, listening to the pre-game on 700 WLW, I wonder about that gray area between right and wrong and how we choose to remember not only players and celebrities, but one another.

After all, as someone once said, if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying hard enough. Baseball has a strange ethos where it’s considered bad sportsmanship to cheat, but even worse sportsmanship to complain about the other guy cheating.

In Game 2 of the 2006 World Series, Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Kenny Rogers hurled an eight-inning shutout against St. Louis. The Cardinals grumbled that Rogers was doctoring the ball with pine tar; television cameras revealed a suspect macule on his pitching hand. The Gambler claimed it was only dirt and resin, and strictly legal.

This event recalled the New York Mets’ Wally Backman, who, 20 years earlier in the National League Championship Series, accused opposing starting pitcher Mike Scott, of Houston, of scuffing baseballs. Scott had just thrown a complete game, allowing one run. In the clubhouse after, Backman produced seventeen balls allegedly altered by Scott.

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