Can we give Pete Rose credit for ONE thing?

[BluegrassRedleg]

Wouldn't mind having him in the booth every game.

[RedsBaron]

I am currently reading Kostya Kennedy's "Pete Rose: An American Dilemma." It's a good book. One of the many attributes of Rose depicted in the book is his absolute love of baseball and his immense knowledge of the game. Unfortunately Pete's arrogance and love of himself eclipsed his love of the game.
In one passage (page 37) Kennedy writes about how Rose became uncharacteristically quiet at a restaurant in Cooperstown when Yogi Berra came in, just interested in hearing what Yogi had to say. On the same page there is a brief description of a woman telling Rose that her dad would have liked the way he played and Pete's delight when he learned she was Babe Ruth's daughter.
Rose was a decent, not great, manager. He may have made a terrific "color" commentator as a broadcaster. He certainly could have had value to a team in developing talent. The Reds and their fan base lost a lot because of Rose's sins.

[Edskin]

For a guy that "simply loves the game," he didn't love it enough to love it simply for what it was. And that sums up my entire feelings on the matter for the past 30 years.

Having said that, I do think he makes for interesting listening and I am so tired of the subject/debate that I really don't care what happens going forward. Whatever. I do think he'd make for a good color analyst.

[Edskin]

I live in McAlester, Oklahoma now. We have a huge baseball tournament here which involves major prospect talent and famous guest speakers. Pete was one of those speakers several years ago.

Whenever I say I am from Cincinnati here, people tell me the same story about Pete. He openly mocked a beloved man/ sports reporter here during his speech. This man I have gotten to know since I moved here. He will not win the James Dean award for cool, but he is kind and did not deserve the cold hearted humiliation Pete gave him.

It's tough to be a fan of Pete with stories like that.

McAlester, eh? I'm in OKC...not to pry, but out of curiosity, what brings someone from the Cincy area to such a specific spot like Mac?

[Rantly]

That interview was just so good. The Johnny Bench quote was hilarious. Pete is just so incredibly good talking baseball and so incredibly bad talking everything else.

What did he say about Johnny?

[BernieCarbo]

Great hitters rarely make great managers. Witness Ted Williams; he hated pitchers, and blamed the Senators/Rangers woes on his staff.

Come to think of it, I can't think of any great player that made a great manager. I think they are just too emotionally attached to certain elements of the game and lack balance.

And for what it's worth, I never had anything against Rose the player, and I'm sure he would have tons of great stories. But I guess he cared less than we did, which is fine I guess.

[vaticanplum]

For those of us whose ears were bleeding listening to Pirates TV, can anyone sum up what Rose said about Votto?

[dougdirt]

For those of us whose ears were bleeding listening to Pirates TV, can anyone sum up what Rose said about Votto?

If you ask Joey Votto to swing at pitches 2 inches outside, then the next time you will ask him to swingat pitches 6 inches outside and that's not going to work. Joey Votto is a very good hitter because of his approach. It works. AS for the RBI, you get guys on in front of him and it will take care of itself, but get guys on in front of him. Jay Bruce HR.

[lollipopcurve]

Joey Votto is a very good hitter because of his approach. It works.

What Pete said was a little more nuanced than that. He said Votto's approach works for Votto. He compared his approach to Joe Morgan's. Guys who swing almost exclusively at strikes. He did not say all hitters should hit that way. He said he himself would swing at some pitches out of the zone, as would Bench, as would Perez. In other words, don't ask a good hitter not to hit like himself. He kept saying, emphatically, "Joey can hit," and mentioned Marty by name as a critic of Votto, basically saying that while MB knows a lot about baseball he's wrong on this one.

[RedsBaron]

Great hitters rarely make great managers. Witness Ted Williams; he hated pitchers, and blamed the Senators/Rangers woes on his staff.

Come to think of it, I can't think of any great player that made a great manager. I think they are just too emotionally attached to certain elements of the game and lack balance.

And for what it's worth, I never had anything against Rose the player, and I'm sure he would have tons of great stories. But I guess he cared less than we did, which is fine I guess.

Before Rose became a manager some people speculated that he might be the exception to the general rule that great players do not make great managers because the game didn't come as easily to Rose as it did to most great players.
During his time as Reds manager Rose was competent, but not great. He had four full seasons as Reds manger and parts of two others, so maybe he was as good as he was ever going to be in that role, or perhaps he would have improved with more experience.
I sometimes believe Rose's best post-playing job would have been as a commentator. Odds are sooner or later, probably sooner, he would have said something improper on air that would have got him in trouble but he would have been both entertaining and insightful (and yes, self centered).

[Sea Ray]

This is why his story is such a tragedy. His actions cost MLB and it's fans one of the best baseball minds of all time.

I think Pete was a pretty good manager. His weakness was his proclivity for playing older players but over time, he started learning from his mistakes. For example early on in his managerial career he played Eddie Milner over Eric Davis and himself over Nick Esasky but for him to win as many games as he did with such a dearth of pitching is really quite remarkable

[buckeyenut]

Before Rose became a manager some people speculated that he might be the exception to the general rule that great players do not make great managers because the game didn't come as easily to Rose as it did to most great players.
During his time as Reds manager Rose was competent, but not great. He had four full seasons as Reds manger and parts of two others, so maybe he was as good as he was ever going to be in that role, or perhaps he would have improved with more experience.
I sometimes believe Rose's best post-playing job would have been as a commentator. Odds are sooner or later, probably sooner, he would have said something improper on air that would have got him in trouble but he would have been both entertaining and insightful (and yes, self centered).

You know, my thinking about baseball is so far matured beyond what it was when I was watching Pete manage. I would really have to go back and do some serious work to analyze how good of a manager Pete really was. He could have been very far ahead of the game of the day with his SABR-like thinking but I would have never understood it back then if he was. His results were pretty darn good although none of the obvious triggers to say he was great.

[George Anderson]

I think Rose would of been a great broadcaster, but I doubt he would of settled for just doing the local Reds gig. He would of wanted a high paying national job.

Always follow the money with Pete.

[paulrichjr]

I think Rose would of been a great broadcaster, but I doubt he would of settled for just doing the local Reds gig. He would of wanted a high paying national job.

Always follow the money with Pete.

He probably would have done it for the Reds a couple of years and then the Phillies would have called and he would have changed to them over $100,000....and all those memories from 10 years old me would have come back.

[Danny Serafini]

What did he say about Johnny?

Rose was asked about batting leadoff for the Phillies in his first game back in Cincinnati, because he was the last Cincinnati native to leadoff a game in Cincinnati before whoever it was for the Pirates yesterday. He said Eric Gregg was the ump, and he and Bench were jawing back and forth because Bench wasn't happy with the calls. During Rose's 2nd AB Gregg had had enough and told Bench he'd bite his head off if he kept it up. Bench responded that if he did that he'd have more brains in his stomach than in his head