Pete Rose: RIP

Pete Rose died the other day.  (So too, did Kris Kristofferson, another great.)

“Charlie Hustle,” as he came to be known was one of the all-time greats in America’s Sport.

How great?  This great:  A switch hitter, he was the MLB’s all-time leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053), singles (3,215) and outs (10,328).  He won three World Series championships, three batting titles, one Most Valuable Player Award, two Gold Glove Awards and the Rookie of the Year Award.  He made 17 All-Star appearance in an unprecedented five positions (first baseman, second baseman, left fielder, right fielder, and third baseman.

Peter Edward Rose Sr was born on April 14, 1941.  He made his mark in Major League Baseball from 1963 to 1986, mostly for the Cincinnati Reds (or the Big Red Machine as it was known in the 1970s).  He also played for the Philadelphia Phillies, where he won his third World Series in 1980, and had a brief stint with the Montreal Expos. He managed the Reds from 1984 to 1989.

Like many of us who are too consumed by the present state of affairs, memories of my youth came flooding back.  Nothing today is as it was back then when Baseball mattered.  (For me, Baseball stopped mattering during the 1994 strike.  These guys were making big bucks chasing a ball around a field while most of us were stuck in dead-end jobs.)  Truth be told, the intense politicization of, well, everything since then makes it hard to describe to young people today how much better things were back then.  Oh sure, we had our problems, but America was still a nation.  Tribal politics is now our national past-time.

We’re now way too polarized.

How bad is the polarization?  President Biden told the people of this country that the victims of Hurricane Helene –all of whom live in Red States–could not depend on the Federal government for the aid that is usually dispensed to disaster victims.  A lot we were told, would have to come from individual citizens.  This is insane.  Just close your eyes and imagine what life was like in 1980, when the Big Red Machine dominated Baseball.  Can you imagine any American president saying something like this?  I can’t.

Just thinking aloud here:  What about all those taxes we pay through the nose to Uncle Sam?  That money goes to the Ukraine faster than you can say Jackie Robinson (another Baseball reference, courtesy of my dear, departed mother).  If you had any doubt about what the Ruling Class thinks about the rest of us, you can put those to rest.  They don’t give a rat’s ass.

So don’t lecture me about the fact that Rose was permanently barred from the Baseball Hall of Fame because he was accused of gambling.  Although he initially denied it, he eventually fessed up.  Yes, he did place bets on some games, even some in which he played.  That may have appeared inexcusable back then but compare his sins with that of Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of Homeland Security.  He just informed us that FEMA had run out of money.  Why, you ask?  Because $1 billion was given to house illegal aliens in American towns throughout the fruited plain.

We have fallen so far with clowns like Mayorkas, Garland, Harris and others of their ilk.  (Speaking of someone who isn’t up to the task, did you see what the vice presidential debate?  If it were a boxing match, the referee would have called it in the middle of the second round.)  They aren’t worthy of tying Rose’s cleats.

To the powers that be:  do the right thing and put Rose in the Hall of Fame.  He deserves it.