Remembering Pete Rose, the player: Charlie Hustle to the end

When I first started watching baseball, Pete Rose was the biggest name in the sport, so popular that fans of opposing teams loved him, so admired by sportswriters that they couldn't limit their prose, so likable that he advertised Jockey underwear made Aqua Velva and Swanson's Hungry Man Dinners and Zenith televisions.

The great Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray dedicated an entire chapter of his 1993 autobiography to Rose. “He was what the game was supposed to be — or how we perceived it to be,” Murray wrote. “Rose has been a ballplayer on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. Norman Rockwell invented it. Pete was as easy-going as a summer day, as instinctive as a hunting dog. He was born to hunt, or in his case, to play baseball. He He never wanted to do anything else.

That was the story for a while. Nobody played harder. Nobody got more out of their limited abilities. During the epic Game 6 of the 1975 World Series between Rose's Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox, Rose reportedly turned to Red Sox first baseman Carl Yastrzemski and said, “Isn't this just great?!” Aren’t we lucky?”?! Can you think of something you'd rather do?!” Or maybe he said it to Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk. Or maybe he said it to manager Sparky Anderson after the game, even though Cincinnati had just lost in 12 innings.

The details are not important. The point was that no one loved baseball more than Pete Rose. He turned that hustle, that desire and that love into a 24-year career and had more base hits than any other player in MLB history – 4,256 of them, breaking Ty Cobb's record.

Everything that came after – well, it's all there. The baseball bets, the denials, the banishments, the endless Hall of Fame debates. All of it ugly, none of it funny, all things Rose took upon herself.

However, the player Pete Rose is a fascinating study. Along the way he was underrated, overrated and then underestimated again.

Rose, a Cincinnati native, was signed by the Reds in 1960 (before the 1965 draft began). An early scouting report stated: “Cannot run, hit, throw or catch. All Rose can do is hustle.” That was a little unfair, because he clearly could do a lot: .331 in Class D Tampa in 1961 (where he also hit 30 triples, so maybe he could run a little too ); .330 at Class A Macon in 1962; .273 as a rookie with the Reds in 1963, winning the Rookie of the Year award.

However, the description of the hustle and bustle was apt. Mickey Mantle supposedly gave Rose his famous nickname “Charlie Hustle” after watching the youngster in a spring training game, likely after seeing Rose sprint to first base after a walk. He didn't mean it as a compliment.

But I'm not entirely sure when it became the nickname. In a headline of a 1965 Sports Illustrated story, Rose is referred to as “Joe Hustle,” a nickname from his minor league days. It doesn't have the same sound. This story focused on Rose spending the past winter in Venezuela trying to improve his ability to turn the double play. Because he had improved on the field, Phillies manager Gene Mauch called Rose the National League's most valuable player – a bit of an exaggeration, but Rose actually finished sixth in the voting that season, having had 209 hits and 117 one Value of .312 reached runs.

In 1968 his name was Charlie Hustle. He had moved to the outfield. Rose's defensive versatility has been an asset throughout his career. After starting his career at second base, he became a regular at right field, left field, third base and first base (and he started at all five positions in the All-Star Games).

Rose posted a .335 batting average in 1968 – an impressive average that year as a pitcher – and won the first of his three batting titles; only five other players even hit .300 that season. At the time, Rose was considered extremely old-fashioned. When the ballplayers began to grow—gasp—sideburns, Rose still maintained a crew cut. When asked why in a Sports Illustrated story, he replied, “Because we have razors and barbers in Cincinnati.” He earned $57,000 that year. “I want to be the first player who hasn't won 20 games or is a big-time home run hitter to make $100,000 a year,” he said. He arrived there in 1970.

Rose was a production machine who rarely missed a game, posting a .300 average and chasing 200 hits like a dog chasing a ball. He hit .300 nine straight years from 1965 to 1973, missed one year in 1974, and then hit it five more times in a row. He had 200 goals in 10 different seasons and led his league in hits a total of seven times.

He won an MVP award in a fairly typical year for him: He hit .338 with 5 home runs, 64 RBIs and 115 runs batted in in 1973, despite having a career-best 230 hits. It was undoubtedly an excellent season (although teammate Joe Morgan probably should have won that year). But the writers respected Rose so much that they gave him special credit for the Reds' success. They ran quotes like this one from a Reds coach: “He doesn't resemble any other player I've ever been associated with or even seen. Recently in Houston, Doug Rader told me, 'Just playing against this guy inspires me.'”

How could they not give him the MVP award when he was wowing contradictory Player?

In 1975, the Reds – after playoff losses in 1970, 1972 and 1973 – finally won the World Series by defeating the Red Sox in Game 7. The team struggled early this season, underperforming at third base. Rose volunteered to move there, which opened up left field for George Foster. The big red machine was born. Rose hit a .370 batting average in the World Series and won the MVP award (despite scoring only three runs and driving in two).

At the start of the 1978 season, Rose scored his 3,000th goal. Later that summer, he went on a 44-game hitting streak – the best challenge yet to Joe DiMaggio's record. He stated his final goal was “3,630” – Stan Musial's National League hits record. Cobb wasn't even in sight.

“Nobody is upset about all the attention Pete gets,” Hall of Famer Johnny Bench told the New York Times during the streak. “He is goal-oriented and achieving his goals helps us achieve ours.”

In some ways, all of these highlights and successes led to Rose being a little overrated. His career high in home runs was just 16. When he turned 31, he only reached double figures once more. Although he was a good outfielder, he was a pretty bad third baseman. In 1975, for example, he finished fifth in MVP voting – and was named Sports Illustrated's Athlete of the Year – although we now retroactively credit him with 4.1 WAR, just 18th among NL players. position players.

After the 1978 season, he signed with Philadelphia as a free agent, shocking the baseball world. He was 39 years old and coming off a season in which he hit seven home runs, but after signing a $3.2 million contract, the Times wrote: “The wildest auction in baseball history ended today When Pete Rose signed a four-year contract with the Philadelphia Phillies for $800,000 per year, becoming the highest-paid player in the industry.”

It was a tall order for a low-strength player who had to move to first base. But it's hard to say it wasn't worth it for the Phillies: They won their first World Series in 1980 with a 40-year-old Rose (who hit a home run all season). Rose made a famous play in the World Series when a crucial foul pop-up bounced off catcher Bob Boone's glove – and into Rose's glove, which was there shading Boone. It was almost as if Rose had promised the Phillies a title (they also had Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton).

And finally, Rose was underestimated again in another sense. After his retirement, when analytics came into play, it became inevitable to describe Rose as overrated – just a singles hitter. There's no doubt that Rose was the ultimate numbers-cruncher – whether hitting 200 in a season or holding out later just to catch up with Cobb – but it's not exactly fair to call him just a singles hitter.

Rose led his league in doubles five times; His career total of 746 ranks second all-time. He had a good eye at the plate and posted on-base percentages over .400 five times; He led the league in scoring another season. He finished in the top 10 in the NL in OBP 11 times – and in OPS three times. The combination of his ability to get on base, his stamina, and the fact that he hit leadoffs for much of his career (with a good lineup behind him!) led to a lot of runs being scored – leading his league four times on, a further six times second or third and sixth most of all time.

Using these modern analytics, he had a career WAR of 79.5, sandwiched between Jeff Bagwell and Joe DiMaggio. That puts him above Brooks Robinson and Robin Yount and below Chipper Jones and Rod Carew. Does this mean it is over- or underestimated? He's not in the class of Henry Aaron, Rickey Henderson or Schmidt – the inner circle of the inner circle – but he's an absolute elite player for his play on the field. The career hits record, I would certainly suggest, exaggerated his overall achievement in the eyes of the average fan and conflated him with the image of the hustler, the overachiever, the guy who played the game the way it was meant to be played .

In fact, in Rose's final interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer earlier this year, one of his quotes was, “I played the game right.” Charlie Hustle to the end.