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Friday, February 25, 2000
Rose tees off
The Cincinnati Reds great,
By Paul Arnett
in Honolulu this week for an
autograph session, is pushing
for reinstatement
Star-BulletinPete Rose and Gordie Howe sat on a bench talking to Tom Seaver, who stood in front of them practicing his golf swing.
"You know, Gordie played when they didn't wear masks or helmets," Rose said to Seaver, a touch of admiration in his voice. "Now that was a tough man's game."
A few yards away, Julius Erving and Joe Namath walked out of the Koolau Golf Club pro shop as they prepared for 18 holes on one of the more demanding courses in the island chain.
Seeing them brought a smile to Rose's equally recognizable face.
"This is a big thrill for me to see all these Hall of Famers," Rose said. "I got to know Dr. J when we both played in Philadelphia, but I had no idea all these legends would be here. This will be fun."
Rose is in town to take part in a sports card and memorabilia show to be held this weekend at the Ilikai Ballroom. And while Erving, Namath, Howe and Seaver command respect for their myriad accomplishments, it's Rose who is still making front-page news.
He will sign autographs tomorrow from 1-3 p.m. and will command a price tag of $75 for bats and jerseys, and $32 for flats and baseballs. Rose attends autograph shows once or twice a month and according to organizers, he is usually the main event.
Despite being banned from baseball since 1989 for his alleged gambling, Rose received the longest ovation at last year's World Series when the top 100 players of the century were honored."How do you think I felt, standing next to Stan Musial and hearing that kind of applause for me?" Rose said. "Fans enjoy honesty. Fans understand that I realized that I made some mistakes and I wish I hadn't done it.
"I've paid for my mistakes and they're willing to let you go on. That's where we are right now. You have to understand, I've only been seeking reinstatement for two years. This is going to take some time."
It has been 11 years since Rose was first called into the baseball commissioner's office to address allegations about not only betting on sports, but baseball, including his own Cincinnati Reds team.
Rose flatly denied these allegations, but six months after first meeting with commissioner-elect A. Bartlett Giamatti on Feb. 20, 1989, he agreed to a lifetime ban.
"Baseball is very ticklish about gambling and I understand that because in 1919 there was the Black Sox scandal," he said. "The sad thing about my case is if I had been addicted to drugs or if I had beat my wife, or if I would have been an alcoholic, I'd still be managing the Cincinnati Reds today and they would be paying for my rehab.
"But I gambled. It sounds stupid, but I have a 10-year-old daughter and a 15-year-old son. And I hope they don't do any of the four, but if they had to pick from being a wife beater, being an alcoholic, being a drug addict or being a gambler, I hope they would pick gambling.
"And I'm not trying to justify what I did. But I'm just saying, as a person in society of the four vices, you're better off because you're not going to hurt anybody but yourself in gambling."I mean, if you gamble like I did. Obviously, if you're going to be the type of gambler who is going to go stealing things to get money for gambling, but I wasn't that type. I just enjoyed betting on football. And I can honestly say that I don't do it anymore and I'm very careful who I associate with.
"That's what I was told to do. Bart Giamatti told me to reconfigure my life and that's what I've done. You never know if I'll get reinstated. I just keep my fingers crossed and keep the spirit."
Rose still keeps his eye on baseball as well, especially this time of year as spring training begins. He's pleased that Ken Griffey Jr., baseball's brightest star, opted to sign with Rose's old team, the Cincinnati Reds.
"That's my hometown, too," Rose said. "I went around saying I didn't think he would sign because they would have to break up the team to get him. But they didn't have to give up that much.
"Now, as a baseball fan, I thought the game would be better off if Ken Griffey Jr. were in L.A., New York, Chicago, Philadelphia - a big-market team. Because he is the best player in baseball today and I think baseball is better off if he's on the showcase."
As for Griffey taking a pay cut to sign in Cincinnati, Rose isn't too sure about that.
"I'm pretty much up to speed on things in Cincinnati," Rose said. "And I was told there's some clause in the contract that for every year for 16 years after he retires, he gets an extra $2 million or something.
"So I'm not going to sit here and be one of those gullable guys who thinks Ken Griffey went to Cincinnati for $20 or $30 million less. School's still out on that. And I think another thing we need to learn about is there a deal where his dad is going to be the manager. I've heard people think that that's true, too. I don't know. But it takes a lot of hustle to be worth $15 million a year, but more power to him."
Back in his day, Rose was among the highest-paid athletes, earning $1 million a season. But that's a far cry from what Griffey gets today.
"But if I were playing today, I would command the most money of anybody because when I played, I was the highest-paid guy in sports," said Rose, who played for the Cincinnati Reds from 1963 to 1978 before going to Philadelphia and leading the Phillies to the World Series in 1980 and 1983.
"And I can speak about free agency because I went through it in the winter of 1978," Rose said. "I went to St. Louis and they offered me Budweiser distributorships. I went to Kansas City and they offered me oil wells. Ted Turner in Atlanta offered me $1 million a year to play and $1 million every year until I died.
"But I took the lowest offer when I went to Philadelphia because I wanted to win and we did win after I got there. At that stage of my career, I needed to be on a good team."
Rose would like to get back into baseball at the teaching level. In his mind, the man who holds 19 major-league records, who once hit in 44 consecutive games, managed a lifetime average of .303 and finished with more hits than even Ty Cobb with 4,256, has something to offer to the modern-day athlete.
"You have to understand one thing," Rose said. "I'm a baseball person. My whole childhood life I was a baseball player. My whole adult life I was a baseball player and manager.
"I'm a baseball teacher. I just sit and dream about getting back into the world of baseball because I can make players better players, I can make a team a better team and I can make a town have a more positive feeling about their town. Hopefully, one day I'll get another shot."
PeteRose.com
