Charlie Hustle: The Rise & Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball

“Charlie Hustle: The Rise & Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball” by Keith O’Brien

I’m a Cincinnati boy who grew up in the era with a dominant baseball team, the Cincinnati Reds ... also known as “The Big Red Machine.” We had our stars – even Hall of Famers – but my favorite player was Pete Rose. He was a west side Cincinnati boy, like me. He set a record that may never be broken, with 4256 hits. He won three World Series, was a 17-time All Star, and played the most games. He also was a really bad guy, cheating on his team and his family; and was banned from baseball for gambling.  But I still consider Pete my baseball hero.

The book does a good job of chronicling the golden era in baseball, when it was actually more popular than football. Unfortunately, the book shows that the demons that made an average athlete into a super star could also create a compulsive gambler.

Pete Rose died recently, bringing back the historic debate of his entry into the Hall of Fame. I would vote yes; his issues were not performance related and I believe in grace. There are several “bad guys” in the Hall, so Pete wouldn’t be alone. Many disagree.

We have all worked with high performing assholes. While we enjoy their success for a while ... in the end their true colors show. For Pete, the bad outweighed the good; even though there was a lot of good.