The Hustler

“Pete lived his entire 83 years, not just his spectacular baseball career, like he was double-parked. He’d sprint to first base the instant the ump called ball four. Vin Scully once told his listeners, ‘Pete Rose just beat out a walk.’ I once saw him sprint off after striking out.” Pete Rose who died yesterday at the age of 83 was known as Charlie Hustle. He hustled like no other player on the field, and the hustles he ran off the field never really stopped either. Rick Reilly in WaPo (Gift Article): Pete Rose finally stopped. (But the debate over his legacy will live on.)

+ “No life in baseball has been more examined than his, because Rose made you examine it. Everything he did was powered by pure brass, and he knew as only the greats do that there is nothing Americans respond to quite as much as raw self-centered fascination. Humility, for public people, mostly just means performing how humble you are, and Rose never even bothered with that. In a culture that loves nothing more than the concept of ‘me explaining the magnificence of me,’ Rose was almost uniquely qualified to satisfy. There was no ‘me’ more ‘me’ than Pete Rose. He didn’t even mind if you bothered him for an interview and found him wanting in honesty and character. It mattered only that you came, and left with a story.” Ray Ratto nails Rose, and us: Pete Rose, All-American.

+ If you didn’t see it when it came out, the Max doc series on Rose is worth a watch, both for the baseball, and his weird inability to stop lying and harming his own legacy. Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose.