Junk Wax Jay: Pete

The king is dead.

Or rather…

…long live the king.

Something like that, right?

I imagine a lot has been written, and a lot will be written about Pete Rose in the coming weeks. I’m sorry to add to that. And it shouldn’t be shocking or surprising that a 83-year-old man has died. It’s just…well…Pete Rose loomed over baseball like a gloomy shroud for over thirty years since he’d been banned from the sport. More than Bonds. More than any of those “roid” guys from the 90s/early 2000s. So, it is kind of shocking. Say what you will about greenies and pep pills or whatever, but Pete Rose wasn’t pumping steroids into his body to play the game of baseball hard-nosed and fast the way he did in his 20+ year career. He’s the all-time hits leader for a reason.

And yet…

There’s the gambling (although what in the hell does that even matter now). And the low-life associations. The philandering. The lifetime ban. That “nifty” character clause in the Hall-of-Fame balloting that voters like to site, that probably would’ve kept him out regardless. But on paper, undeniably, Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame. But he’s not in the Hall of Fame. I think it would be a disingenuous slap in the face to put him in the Hall of Fame now that he’s gone. Maybe that sounds stupid. But it just doesn't feel right.

In my own experiences with Pete Rose, I never saw the man in his prime. When I got into baseball, Pere was over 40 and over the hill. And the walls were closing in. I finished a book over the summer entitled: Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball by Keith O’Brien.

The book was good. It pulled no punches. Pete Rose was a hero on the field, and not so much off of it. I don’t begrudge a person their dark side. I’m one of those people who can easily separate art from the artists, or I guess the baseball from the ballplayer. But…when I finished O’Brien’s book, I have to admit I was pretty certain that I wasn’t going to do a Collecting by the Book blog post on Pete Rose.

And yet…

Let’s go back to childhood.

When I was in the heart of my collecting years, let’s say 1984-1987, Pete Rose was just an absolute giant in the sport of baseball, and probably more so in The Hobby. Pete was heading toward immortality and that made trying to get his cards an exciting prospect for a young collector. Baseball and baseball fans love players whom are heading toward immortality. I remember being 10 and people talking about Pete Rose trying, probably actually breaking Ty Cobb’s hit record, within the next year or so. I learned who Ty Cobb was because of Pete Rose.

The very idea of seeing Pete break that record was exciting.

I remember when I got this card.

My first Pete Rose card after that horrible suitcase debacle.

It was one of the front cards in a rack pack that they were selling at the Giant Eagle supermarket. My grandma bought it for me because we were staying with her and my grandpap while my parents were out of town, and when there was some money to buy kids who missed their parents something, adults did the right thing back then. I remember opening the rack pack in the backseat of my grandpap’s car and just being excited over the Pete Rose card. Looking at it as we drove to Star’s bar where my grandparent’s had a few afternoon beers. Bringing the cards in the with me to look at it over and over again, as I sipped Ginger Ale and ate those octagon-shaped Lance’s cheese crackers.

You could take kids to bars in 1984.

When I was a kid older Pete Rose cards were unaffordable because he was nearing thar hallowed record. I mean, to be honest, if it didn’t come in a pack, most older cards were unaffordable to me back then. But Pete? Forget about it. You couldn’t even get a kid to trade you a Pete Rose card. In 1985, I certainly had a lot of cards for players that I was looking to pull out of a pack. Gooden’s rookie card comes to mind. I wish I could remember the excitement of pulling this one.

Because it would’ve been exciting.

Because 1985 was the year, right?

Pete Rose heading toward breaking Ty Cobb’s hit record was THE baseball news that entire summer of 1985. Us kids, us collector’s; we all had Pete Rose fever in that summer of 1985. I always claimed to have memories of seeing Pete Rose break Cobb’s record. The setting: I remember I was at my Aunt and Uncle’s, just sitting there watching regular old TV, and the news interrupted with one of those bulletins, right; Pete Rose’s record breaking at bat. For years I believe that’s what happened.

But I was wrong.

And kind of right.

The footage I saw was actually from Sunday, September 8^th, 1985, when the news did, in fact, interrupt regular old TV to show a Pete Rose at bat. And I was at my Aunt and Uncle’s, watching regular old TV when it happened. September 8^th, 1985 was a Sunday, and most liked I would’ve been at my Aunt and Uncle’s because it was my cousin’s birthday party. The Pete Rose hit that I saw on TV that day was in a game against the Cubs when Pete Rose TIED Ty Cobb for the all-time hits record.

But what I, and millions of us witnessed that day…well, I let the folks at SABRexplain.

How many of you remember being excited when Topps did this in 1986?

As a fan and collector as age 12, I was already well-versed in baseball cards and how Topps celebrated achievements.

Pete Rose getting the Henry Aaron treatment.

And it seemed fitting…at that time.

But…Pete Rose squandered that immortality…didn’t he? The compulsion to gamble. The compulsion to lie about it, and spending the next thirty some years never owning up to it. Maybe that’s pride. Maybe that’s delusion. Maybe the standards of a sports hall of fame should stick to the sport…or at least not be so selective as to what bad behavior is acceptable and what isn’t. Maybe Pete Rose understood something about the mystique of baseball that us fans didn’t. I know when I got back into collecting in 2019, I certainly made sure to get some Pete Rose cards.