682 - Pete Rose - part one

You are listening to the dollop on the all-thingy comedy network. This

is an American history podcast, where each week I,

Dave Anthony, read a story from American history to a giant boob. Gareth Reynolds,

who won't push back and who has no idea what the topic is going to be about.

You're not going to push back. No,

I will say, Dave,

we've been talking about

this. We're doing three.
This is a three-parter.

I don't know what it is. You can't see.
No, I can't. Even if I could see.
But I'm excited. I think it said Pinocchio.
It's Pinocchio. It's exciting.

It's a Pinocchio.

Do you like doing a three-parter? He was a born in the year. Did you know?

Did you know this was going to be three parts when you started, or is this one of those ones where you just were like... I did not do the research.
I sent this to a new researcher.

Luke Simmons.

Josh Androwski. Oh,

has done a couple.

He's done some stuff.

I sent this one to him.

That's exciting.

And I knew it would be long.

I thought it'd be two. And he said, it's pretty long.

So, yeah, it's three. That's exciting.
Yeah.

That's exciting. And if people want to know who Josh is,

just Google Rabbi Prices Wright Mushrooms. Yeah.

That's right. And

you'll see.

He comes up there. I remember when

one time we were all, the three of us were out somewhere. We were at the Bigfoot Lodge years ago.
Yeah. And you guys were talking about you so negatively about Obama.

And I was like, what the hell are these guys talking about?

I was like, what are they talking about?

I was like, we saw things coming. I was genuinely like, Jesus.
Guys, look, I got notes, but come on. Do you know who the right-wing's Obama is? Ooh.

No. No, it's Donald Trump, baby.
Yeah.

April 14th, 1941, the year of our Lord J-Town.

Did he put that in there? Also, J-Lo and the JJ Music Factory is what he put in.

I don't think that's true, though. I don't think.

Well, again, I'm not the history guy.

Peter Edward Rose was born

on one of the greats. Oh my God.

I didn't know until he sent me. I mean, I knew some stuff, but I didn't know until he sent me this.

It's nice that he just passed, too. Boy.

What a tribute.

He was born on the west side of Cincinnati, Ohio to Laverne and Harry Francis Rose.

But everybody called. Have you ever given a girl a hairy rose?

Is that the kind of podcast this is going to be?

Come on.

Well, define it. Hairy rose.
Break it down for people.

What's the hairy rose you give to a young lady? It's

a euphemism for getting a blowjob with a cockrink.

Thorny.

Why are the hairy?

Come on. We all got...

What are you shaving? Oh, yeah, I'm like a baby.

I'm going extra bush. Is there anything creepier than a fully shaved 50-year-old man?

Now, is this this kind of podcast?

What's your style? Hey, ladies. What is your style? I mostly do letters.

I got a mohawk. I usually have a political slogan.
You know what I like to do? I shave it all off, and then I put rubber cement on my penis, and then I roll it around in that.

It's called the Harry Rose.

You finally figured it out.

So everybody called Harry

Big Pete. Okay.

And since father was Big Pete, the son came to be known as Little Pete. That's tough.

By the way, that's an important seed.

That was appropriate, though, because he was about two sizes smaller than the rest of the kids that he grew up with. Okay.

So the west side of Cincinnati, very proud, working class, German immigrants type place. They worked with their hands, you know, know, they're

hands-on folks. It's permanently run down, just dilapidated,

just like hanging together, cinder blocks and mortar, right? It's not great. Okay.

Which is all gone in our country now.

What? Oh, that sort of thing. The sort of level of dilapidated.
Right. Everything's very shiny and pretty.
Well, we're, you know, we're the shining city on a hill. Yeah.

We should rename the country the Jetsons Land. Yeah.
No, we're, we're definitely. I don't know if you've seen some of the stuff that China and Japan are doing.

Hey, can I just stop you right there and point out that I just brought up a cartoon reference from 50 years ago? It's come back.

It's been rebooted. The Rose family embodied all of this.
Little Pete had a relatively normal family.

The only thing you could say it wasn't classically American working class was his grandfather's pet monkey.

Why?

You know,

we've been doing this for a while. It's, it's, I can't.

Look, I understand ethically, it's problematic, and I'm sure this monkey was treated horribly. It probably had to wear some sort of fez or something like that.
Yeah.

I can't help what the science of what my body goes through when I hear pet monkey.

It's excited. Yeah.
I'm happy. Yeah.

Do you want a pet monkey? So bad that it's crazy. I can imagine.
So bad that it's crazy. I can imagine you have a pet monkey.
Is it illegal to have a pet monkey?

Well, I don't. I think there's ways around around it.
I mean, if you go to Instagram, if you go to Instagram, there's a lot of pet monkeys. Yeah, but you just basically say you want to break the law.

No, I'm not breaking the law. And more than anything, it's ethically.
I don't want to house a monkey.

But I will say, if, buddy, if I've sometimes you see these videos of people say, I saw this monkey get saved, this monkey was covered in crabs. We've all been there.
That's called the Airy Rose.

This monkey was covered in crabs. This is a great story.
Tiny monkey. Little, little, little

sea crabs are

real, like crabs you'd want to eat. Yeah, yeah.

And

by the way, that's how I defined you. There's crabs you don't want, and then there's ones you want to eat.
But he's covered in crabs. For some reason, crabs are just all over this monkey.

This guy gets the crabs off this monkey. The monkey's in mud.
He takes it back to his place. He nurses the monkey.
And then the monkey's tiny, and he's wearing like onesies and like stuff like that.

And if I ever go out and I find a monkey. Covered in crabs? Just like in need.
Well, that point you saved him, yeah. It's not going.
That's what I need.

I need to set up a situation where I just buy a monkey, pretend to find it on a hike, and then I'm like scot-free. You'd be like, he was covered in crabs.
Just like Daddy.

I found him down by Sears in the parking lot.

He was in a pet store covered in crabs.

He was in an abandoned Sears. Yeah.

He was crazy.

So I go to malls a lot and jog through them and boy, oh boy, I went to Animals Unlimited that have been shut down, but I find one of them. They must have left a monkey in there.
He's covered in crabs.

Okay.

This is about the monkey quote. I don't remember how we got rid of it or if it died.
None of us killed it. You couldn't get close enough or it'd bite you.

See, this is the downside. It's not a happy monkey.
It's not a happy monkey, but why would it be a happy monkey when

in your description of the monkey's life, you say, we didn't kill it, but we also don't know what happened to it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, they killed it. They probably had like a chimp.

No, it's too big.

I bet it was a little spider monkey type thing. Nananas.
Again, I'm loving it.

Pete, Big Pete, was a multi-sport semi-pro athlete who had, quote, fists the size of coffee canisters and a face like a chiseled rock. Wow.
A little bit like me. Sure.
Yep.

He definitely got rock head.

He'd play baseball in the spring and summer, and he batted 300, which if you don't know, if you're like from Australia, you don't enjoy actual sports, it's really good.

Have you ever watched a man play Dinky Danny?

Now that's a sport.

You Yankees, you're always claiming you got to go watch a guy.

Load of us went down there the other day, drink a tan, and we watched a Dinky Dunny match. That's a sport.
People are so mad at your accent right now. As they should be.
I need a couple of passwords.

It's good enough for me. Thank you.
Yeah, it's America. All I'm going for is America Pass right now.
I just want the greatest nation on earth to like it. That's right.

He played basketball in the winter, and especially football, every autumn. And Big Pete dominated a league of factory workers while scouts from the Bears, Browns, and Packers looked on.
Wow.

Some legit teams. Big Pete would, yeah, two of them are.
Big Pete would often make little side bets with other players on who would do the best, and he would always bet on himself to win. Okay.

This, so he was so good that the local news created.

He was so good that the local news created an entire football obstacle course for him inside their studio. Wow.

The grand finale of the obstacle course? The eliminator. Spear tackling a desk chair made of wood and metal.
Spear tackling it? Yeah.

Okay.

Since this would obviously harm any man, the network draped a big blanket on the chair and asked Big Pete if he was ready. He was, except one thing, quote, take the blanket off.
You think I'm a sissy?

Yeah. Well, bravado.
Yeah, it's again, we're seeing seeds. We're germinating.
He hit the chair so hard, one of the arms flew off and the rest

smashed into pieces on the floor. Of him or the chair.

Okay, so the chair arm fell off.

So

can we just admit that news used to kick ass? Local news used to just be fucking awesome. It really, now it's it's it's dog shit now.
Yeah, it's fucking terrible. Man,

like imagine imagine a local news producer being like, then we're going to bring in this guy who's really good at football and he's going to attack a chair. Yeah.
I'd be like, let's go.

So Little Pete idolized Big Pete, modeling everything he does after his old man, including his notorious work ethic. Okay.

And as a young boy, Pete got his first job collecting fares down the street at the flywheel ferry that crossed the Ohio River. Okay.
Five cents a person, 35 cents for cars.

Now, little Pete loved the feeling of the metal coins being pressed into his hands.

Just loves that money. Interesting.
And Mr. Kopmeyer, who ran the ferry, would let him take home enough nickels that they jangled in his pockets when he ran to his favorite afterwork hangout,

Schulte's bar. Wow.

Now, Pete's just a young boy. Yeah, so he couldn't go in and drink.
Instead, he would hang outside with the other boys and they'd gamble. Okay, better.

Yeah, well, look, it's,

I mean, again, without revealing, I don't know much, but certainly gambling

keeps coming up for some reason.

So the game they played was called Lagging Pennies, and to play, you'd stand a distance away from the exterior wall of Schulte's and toss a penny at the wall, and the closest penny wins. Yeah,

Michael Jordan played that in the last dance.

And basketball, I think, too. Yeah, I was gonna say, he was, yeah, I believe he also was a basketball player.

Even though the other boys would throw harder and farther than Pete, his eye-hand coordination was so good that a flick of his wrist, he could land that penny right up against the wall.

That's all that matters. That's the game you're playing.
Now, Pete has talent, little Pete has talent, and Big Pete is consumed by

his kid's talent.

That's so similar to you and I. Uh-huh.

Coaching him, all he could do. He eats, sleep, breathe, coaching the kid.
He just wants the kid.

So he forces him to bat and throw

a switch, switch-handed.

So

hitting switch is when you from both sides, right and left. Now, throwing switch is very

odd and doesn't happen. There's a couple guys that can do it, but they're just naturally ambidextrous.
Yeah. But you don't know.
Is there an advantage to it?

No, well, if you're a pitcher, you can switch depending on the batter. Right, okay, right.
But other than that, no.

That is an advantage for a pitcher, though. I guess you could play every position on the field, right? So there are positions you don't put a left-handed player, like second and yeah, right?

They're usually at first base in the outfield.

Those are left-handers. Right.
So you, I guess you, yeah. So there, I guess there would be.
So there's an advantage. But I mean, look, we rag on this sort of stuff, but again, Tiger Woods.

So, but he was just doing this because he thought it might make him good for the Little League team.

He buys

boxing gloves with money that was supposed to go to shoes for his daughters. Yeah, well,

what's going to pay off? Yeah. Who needs?

Right. Do little girls need shoes more?

You know what I mean?

If this hits,

they're going to have fuck you shoe money. You've heard the term barefoot in.
you know, in the kitchen or whatever. Is that a phrase? It is now.

Now, I was just being supportive, but no one's ever said it it as a phrase. Barefoot and pregnant.
What does it mean? Barefoot and pregnant is the term. Barefoot and pregnant.

The way I like to say it is barefoot and in the kitchen. I've never heard barefoot and pregnant either.
Yeah, that's what's that like poor.

Well, though, that's like the woman shouldn't be working and should be in the house.

We can't beat her. Always ready for her feet to be licked.
We can't.

Now I think. I think I'm pretty sure it's a thing.
As a matter of fact, I think one of the popes came up with that.

So

the first time Little Pete hit a line drive in the yard, it went straight through a glass window, shattering it. Big Pete dismisses the idea of fixing it.

The broken window is proof of Pete's first hit.

And when he becomes a big league star, it would be a piece of history. Now, this is where

the girl is not wearing shoes comes in. If you're letting him break windows and you aren't buying shoes for your children, that's where it starts to become a little bit more dangerous.

We'll figure it out.

Big Pete's mantra was hustle.

Okay.

Every aspect of being an athlete could be made better if they hustled. Little Pete didn't have the money for good equipment or coaching.
He didn't have the size. He didn't really even have the talent.

But if his father had his way, hustling would become little Pete's superpower. And Big Pete never let him forget it.

And in middle school, the other boys kind of loomed over little Pete like giants. He's not a big kid.
Sure. And he became Pee-Wee Pete or Puny Pete.

It's tough. This is not good.
Pee-wee-Pete is tough. I can tell you from watching all of Finn's friends grow up together, the ones who are still small.

It's not great. But if we can.

Hang in there. Hang in there.
Hang in there, okay? Hang in there. Eventually, women like really short beds.
Listen,

no, no, no.

Develop your personality.

You are going to, absolutely. You're going to go on your dating profile, and there's there's going to be a lot of women who say, under six feet, no thanks.
And you're going to think, what the fuck?

And it's going to hurt you. And just remember, that's what it's been like to be a woman forever.

So it's no longer really a cute family nickname, right? It's like an albatross around the kid. Sure.
Little Pete still made the teams, but he would sit on the bench while the other kids played. Yeah.

Well, they did that guy.

Finn played a game yesterday, and it's one of the top programs in the, they played against one of the top programs in the country and beat him. But

there's a kid batting fifth, and he was the shape of a meatball. What kind of meatball? A spicy meatball.

Damn it.

He's round. He's a little round guy.
He's not tall. He's very short.
He's very short. He looks like he's under five feet.

And he's round. And I'm like...
Is he round? He's round. And

I look at the other other parents and I go, the only way a kid that shape

makes it onto a high school team, especially a high school team of this caliber, is if he's really fucking good because you have to work against the stereotypes where they just look at you and you go, you can't play.

Yeah. Immediately.
They think you can. And sure enough, he's the best hitter.
He is. Yeah.
On the team. Yeah.
He just smacks it. But like, so Pete, he,

when you're small, they're just like, no. Do we call him Pete Ball?

Yeah. Yeah.
Spassy Pete Ball. Spassy Pete Ball.

So he's a tiny guy.

He really loves baseball,

but it's something he loved more. When Big Pete took his kids to the racetrack.
Oh, fuck. That was a good day.
That was a shock. That was the day, the happiest moments of little Pete's childhood.

Standing at the rail, watching the horses, screaming for daddy's horse to win, jumping up and down, just...

well the euphoria of when he wins, I'm sure, was only cut by the absolute pain and disappointment when he lost. Huh? Yeah.

In high school, like he's hugging you a lot when he wins. You probably were like, ah, my dad's happy today.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Yeah.

In high school, football became...

Sorry, my son needs a...

My son needs $1.35.

Why is he... Why don't you just ask me? Does he not have $1.35?

He does, but I don't understand what's happening. Like, he's got money.
What is he? Oh, he's requesting $20 now. There you go.
That's how they get you. Better.

I mean, you got to go in for the big money. No, he has...
I got him. I gave him a credit card and it's full.

I load it up, right? Sure. But it's got like $200 on it, but he's just like, yeah, I left it at home.
Yeah, so I gotta do this during the podcast. You need me to come in and teach this boy a lesson.

Because he's having his way with you. Now, I'll admit, when I see him now, I'm a little more intimidated.
He's a man. He is bigger than you.

But he he needs Uncle Gary to come around and start showing him a thing or two. He's probably bigger than you.
It doesn't matter. What I've got,

problems. He's probably got more than one.
I've got what a kid can't learn. Problems.
I have problems.

Mental, physical, there's problems. I'm going to let him feel what it's like to be around me.
He'll fall in line.

Let's just stay away from my kid, yeah? Well, see, you're going to be a problem. And I will deal with you how I need to.
I'm going to raise your boy the way I think he should be raised.

And by the way, there's not even a contract on the the table. You've already signed it.
This plan is in motion. You can barely raise a cat, which you've created an abusive cat.

By the way, first of all, fuck you.

Second of all, now that's it. I'm taking, that's.

This whole thing just got a lot more personal and weird. Garnet.

Your coffee says garnet.

I settled for Garrett. I'm going to run in the cup, Garnet.

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Like like we said, loves love the horsies. In high school, football came, becomes Pete's favorite sport.
Little Pete.

But he doesn't play. You know why? He's tiny.
He's a tiny guy. The only time he played sports was in a baseball league outside of school.

He wasn't close to the best player on his team, but he hustled. He was the biggest hustler.
He turned singles into doubles, doubles into triples.

He broke up double plays by sliding headfirst into second. Did not care about his safety.
Did not care about anyone else's safety.

Yet all he could think about was playing football with his high school friends.

His hustle, however, became contagious and his baseball team won the city championship.

His teammates loved his hustle. He was elected captain.
He got his picture in the paper with other team captains. But the paper comes out

on a sad day for little Pete. It's the same day that he was cut from the football team.

And one thought takes over his mind.

Fuck school.

He's a little Gareth Reynolds. I was going to say I'm there.

All day, every day.

They were like, what are you thinking about? I was like, how I shouldn't be here. And how this whole thing is such bullshit.

Dude, my wife loves school and she's just always, I wish I could go to school forever. And what? In what way? In like high school? No, just keep going.
Just keep getting degrees and shit.

And Finn will come in and just be like, oh, God, I fucking hate school I'm like right you're supposed to hate school I hated school too and she's just like I cannot believe this is my child oh my god I made him right oh that is you are supposed to hate it yeah they are setting they are really truly and this is where it's like look you got to get old and start thinking about this a lot to really be like this whole fucking thing it's all just a way to prep you to work in a goddamn factory or an office and fill your head with lies and bullshit yeah to get you to be a they're just they're just the whole thing is just there just so that you're just like man i just gotta take it yeah that's right getting up at 6 a.m 6 30.

uh

so at this point pete is just double school he's not gonna learn anymore he's not gonna try anymore he's not gonna participate get out of there pete they think bringing you down if they can't see how much he tried how much he hustled how hard he hustled then them right yeah them yeah He completely stopped trying.

Good. Now, his baseball teammates were being approached by Cincinnati Reds scouts.
Cincinnati Reds being the local professional baseball team.

One of the OGs. And now, a racial name or no?

No.

It was just pro Red Stockings. Red Stockings, yeah.
I love Red Stockings. I know you do.
Let's not get into that. His baseball teammates.
You remind me of the first time I got a thorny rose.

Are being approached.

And

his uncle, Pete's uncle, is one of the Reds' lead scouts. Okay.

So, nepotism. He gets him.

He's really scouts racial.

Go ahead. He gets him the lowest offer you can get.
Okay. But he gets him a contract to play

A-ball, the lowest, the class D of A-ball. So it's the lowest rung in the

minors of baseball. So there's pro, and then there's all these minor leagues, and he's at the very bottom.
Okay.

It no longer exists. That's how bad it is.
Wow. So they just...
Because of tariffs. Keep going.
I mean, they just need warm bodies in that.

So that's what he is. Sure.
Offer him $7,000, which is a tenth of what one of his high school teammates got. Okay.

His dad tried to negotiate. Hilarious.
But Pete interrupted and said, quote, I'll take it.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I understand both sides. I do love

$7,000 a season.

Yeah. It's pretty crazy.
But it's...

I think it's the 50s, late 50s. Yeah.
So it's not terrible? I don't think you can live on it still. Yeah, right.

Nobody can live on anything now. It's kind of what it seems to be.
Because of the terror. You still make the same amount.
Yeah, right, yeah.

So he reports to training in Geneva, which is in upstate New York. The Geneva Red Legs.

They do not have a professional stadium. So where are they?

It's next to a factory. Oh, good.
You want that smoke? It has very hazardous slopes, dips, and holes around first and third. That's fine, though.
Yeah, because no one can get...

Well, I mean,

again, I mean, I've always said baseball should have a couple more holes in the field. You know what? That would make it more exciting.
Yeah.

Because imagine if a fucking mate, like an all-star just fell into a hole and was just gone. Or he was.
No, no, I'm talking about like to the center of the earth. Oh, yeah, just like a

slide to Satan. Yeah.

Just something like that, where you're just your guy's not looking at, and they should be moving and different in every stadium. So you're just watching a game and you're like, oh,

Vladimir Grove Jr. fell into a hole.
We don't have to go. He's Where is he? He's gone.
And they just go, yeah, he's gone. He's lost.

Yeah.

I would watch way more. Do you still have to pay the contract out to his family?

It wasn't the service. I think there'd be a clause.
There'd be a clause in there that would say,

if you fall in the hole, yeah, you're going to get it. You know, you're going to get a million dollars, but you're not going to get the maximum.
You're going to get the contract.

No, because I mean, look, he should know. Yeah, don't fall in the hole.
Don't fall in that hole. Yeah.
So excuse me. That's fair.

Might I add that you're covering the hole with some dirt so that we actually don't. Oh, you're doing like a trap.
Yeah, but it's either team. Either team could fall in the hole.

But there is what I'd call a whole field advantage, which is when it's the home game. You know where the hole is.
You kind of know where your hole is a little bit. But if you're some strategy.

But if you're in Oakland, which is, I believe, plays next to a factory now. Yes.

Then you are... Yeah, then there's just kind of the hole.
Yeah, I like it. All right.

So grass doesn't even grow in left field anymore. There were fights over who showered first because the hot water was very limited.

The outfield wall was some kind of metal structure. It was either aluminum or tin.

And players would hurt themselves jumping to get a flyball. And even worse, some sliced their wrists open when chasing down a double in the gap.
Wow, okay.

So this is what baseball should be. Well, we did that episode on the guy who kept running.
Yeah, Pete

Reisler, Reisler, whatever.

Pistol Pete, Crazy Pete,

Slippy Pete? Yeah, Concrete Pete.

The prior season had ended when the concession stand caught on fire.

Okay.

But Pete does well. Okay.
Because this hustle, at these lower levels, hustle will really set you apart. Sure.
Like if you're a go-gutter. So it sets him apart.

He climbs up, up the Reds ladder from 1960 to 1963, Geneva to Tampa to

Macon by mastering contact hitting. Becomes a contact hitter.
Meaning what? He just touches, he hits the ball. He's always going to hit the ball.
Okay.

You're not really hitting it for power. You're just hitting it and helping get a single or whatever.
Right. Or moving.
Driving in RBIs or whatever. Yeah.

And contact hitters don't really strike out very much because they're more conservative. As a home run hitter, you're getting a lot of strike.

A lot of strikeouts because you're trying to hit a home run. Yeah, right.
Yeah, so he's a contact hitter. They don't really have very many contact hitters anymore because that was

exciting. Boring.

he had a ridiculous crouch stance

i mean go ahead and look up pete roe's stance if you want to google it because it's really insane he would contort his body like a question mark what he's much shorter than the average mlb player but now his eyes are chest level at the top of the strike zone wow he's very low he's very low oh my god there's one

Now you don't see Quasimoto. You don't see people do that anymore because everyone's being taught to hit the same way, but that was

like it used to be you would figure out how to hit and that would be your thing, but now they all teach him to do it the same way. I mean, it's comical.
That's comical. It's comical.

He looks like he's hunched over. Like it's

he looks like he has a back problem.

That is shocking. That is a shocking little.
Okay. And I don't even know much, but that doesn't look right.
So if you're pitching to him, you have to pitch to a very small area. So it's easier to hit.

Yeah, right. I mean, easier to see the ball.
And sure, he'd hit the ball down, which was he he doesn't want to hit it up for pop flies.

So Pete

is gaining experience and he's getting stronger. He couldn't live on the $7,000 salary, so he works during the offseason at a rail yard unloading heavy freight.
Sure.

And by the winter of 1963, he's gained over 35 pounds of muscle. Holy shit.
Which is a lot for a little guy. Wow.
I got to get down to one of those yards. Yeah.
That's what I got to do.

What we need is an off-season. We do.
We need an off-season. Hit the rail yard.
We need three months where you and I just go and we recharge and we get cut.

And I'll go be a longshoreman and you go do whatever little thing you want to do. Huh? I hit the bag.
Yeah, you hit the bag, whatever. I'm going to go

be with the fucking bros down by the ocean.

It's pretty rapey down there. Well, from what I hear, too, it's work's not what it used to be.
No, because of the tariffs.

I'm a big, I'm doing a lot of tariff stuff. Yeah, you should, because it's hot stuff.
This is five years from now, this will help.

So the Reds' second baseman at the time is a beloved guy. Everyone on the team loves him, the fans, but he's hitting under 240, which now is totally normal, but back then, really bad.
Right, okay.

Pete was lighting up the minors, hitting 100 points higher. Okay.

And Red's manager, Fred Hutchinson,

was

also beloved. Okay.

more by beat writers than his players, but he would stay up drinking all night with the reporters until it was super early in the morning, and then he'd sleep for an hour or two, and then he'd go do a round of golf, and then he'd come back to the hotel when everyone was waking up.

Wow, okay.

So if he is an alcoholic with a golf problem, remember Billy Martin? It's kind of the same fucking thing, but they all did it.

It was a drinking thing. The golf.
Baseball. Oh, baseball was.
Why is he golfing?

You got to get it in. I don't understand.
You got to get a round in.

What else would be in? Do you just go to sleep? Yeah. Get a round in.
It's early.

Even in my heavy drinking day, sleep was a big thing. Sun's up.
Go. Go golf.

Hit the course. Okay.

The player's nickname for him was Old Stoneface because

they never knew what he was feeling unless he was screaming, which he did quite a bit. Well, what was he feeling when he was screaming? Well, then they knew he was upset.
Then they knew.

Unless he was screaming, they didn't know what his emotion was.

All All right. Well, obviously.
By the way, that's an alcoholic thing. Yeah, I was going to say, today we would recognize that this is troubling.
Yeah.

I would have gone with Quasimodo. Okay.
Based on the stance. Yeah.

You're talking about Pete Rose? Yeah.

You know what I'm talking about? This is the coach. I would have called him

Rose Leosis. Oh, it's the coach.
Yeah, we're not talking about Pete.

I know you wanted to.

Okay. Do you feel weird now? Trigger back to you.

Well, there's a lot going on. Yeah.

The writers joke that Hutch didn't throw tantrums. He threw rooms.
Because after losses, you see stools, tables, the entire team post-game meal spread go flying. Oh, that would be infuriating.

He once went into the

tunnel outside the dugout and methodically smashed every single light.

It takes so long.

But it's also just like...

40 lights. Dude, we'll be using that.

Our Christmas decorations. Just get flashlights.

Yes. Yeah, he's that guy.
Okay.

So Hutch knows he has to do something about this second baseman, but there's also a hierarchy. So there's at least two guys in the order above Pete, and those guys are not very good.
They're bumps.

Right.

Quote, if I had any guts, I'd put Pete Rose on second base and forget about it. You're paid to have guts.
Right? Yeah. I think it was different back then.
I think you gave everybody a shot.

You got to respect the process. Give everybody a shot.

It's like if you're,

like, say you're running something called Congress and there's a Jerry Connolly, for instance. He's been waiting for a long time.

Woman who's

popular, you could put her in this spot. But then you've got a guy who's dying.
Who's got throat cancer. And he's been waiting for a while and he's dying and he doesn't know how to set up a webcam.

And it's maybe the most important

time and it's an important role. It's the Oversight Committee of the Finance Committee.

It would be very, very, very helpful to have someone with power guts who goes viral all the time to be in that role. To take on Trump.
Absolutely.

But instead, you decide you're going to put Pop Pop, who's

old yellowing

and has no throat to speak up. And even when they go to him to ask him about it, he seems like it shouldn't be happening.

But you still are like, you should do this. Yeah, you should do this.
Because you're old, weird, and definitely not going to make it.

And then that guy drops out because he can't make it because everyone was right that his health is so diminished that he can't possibly do the job.

And then you just kind of go, what are you going to do?

anywhere um

so these two guys are in front of him and he does invite pete to spring training in 1963 so you can try to make the team okay right

uh and when he's there pete falls in love with pulling a double header every day thought a woman's name was gonna be said okay That's what the players called hitting the last horse race at Florida Downs, then going across the bay to St.

Petersburg for the Derby Lane dog track. Oh, wow.

Pete, however, invented the triple header. Okay.

Tacking a late-night high-level

trip. High-lie? High-lai.
The game? Yeah.

High-lai's in Florida and

I want to say Connecticut. We did an episode on it, didn't we? Okay, I don't know.
I think we did. We did an episode on it.
Okay. I remember talking about it.

Or it was in an episode. Yeah, right.
I kind of remember that. Yeah.
Yeah. So Highlai, which occasionally still comes on, which is what is now called the Ocho.

ESPN's the Ocho, which shows the craziest sports. And every once in a while I'll look up and I'll be like, oh, Highlai's on.
And it's the dumbest sport you've ever watched. Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah. Like, who, who made racquetball worse?

Um, so, yeah, so he, you can bet on Highlai, though. That's one of the reasons they pushed it so much.
So he would go there. So three.

So it's good.

Yeah, yeah, because

he's focused in the right zone.

He also did very well on the diamond. He solidified himself on the roster,

though his new teammates were not really on the same.

They don't care for it.

The veterans really hated Pete because he jumped the line. He jumped over those two guys.
I really can't understand that. That seems very strange.

They're just like... If your business is to put together the best team, at some point someone better than everyone else will come along.
But they think you give that guy a shot.

He got him next, so he gets a shot. You don't have to beat the other guy out.
It's, look, a lot of what this country is founded on is

white guy nepotism. Like, you just put Frank in there.
Well, it's Frank's turn. Yeah.
Yeah.

I can't stop thinking about Jerry Connolly, to be quite honest with you, and just continuing to re-rage over that one.

So the only players who treated Pete like a person were,

God, is that the right name? Veda Pinson and Frank Robinson, who are both black guys. Okay.

Because they have to

kick the door in to what people suck. Yeah.
He was like, well, I don't know. Pete doesn't care that they're black guys.

He would invite them to his hotel room because they couldn't stay in the team hotel. He ate with them.

And when he learned this pissed off the snobby white vet players, he would just egg it on even more, like one time performatively kneeling before Frank Robinson and tying his cleats.

I love that that is

shocking. But, oh, at the time, I mean,

just smoke coming out the ears.

White smoke. Yeah.

That's why you just kiss him. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Kiss him.
Just watch men explode. Literally, a room full of guys just explode.
Just tongue kiss Frank Robinson.

So Pete finds that he loves pissing people off, especially for justice or at least righteousness. And one spring training game against the Yankees, Pete bunted and tore ass to beat out the throw.

That was not normal in spring training. You didn't fucking hustle and go all out.
Right.

You're there to get ready for the season. Sure.

You do that much season.

Once.

One day, yes, he just didn't do it, especially not on a bunt. He just didn't fucking do it.

So baseball icons Mickey Mandela and and Whitey Ford laughed at him and said sarcastically, quote, wow, look at Charlie Hustle over there.

Pete fucking loved it. Like being called Charlie Hustle.
Oh, he fucking loved it.

And now he's pushing the nickname. He loves the attention.
And he decided it's a compliment and he wears it as a badge of honor.

It is weird to be like, well, this guy's really going for it. Like as a negative.
I think that

you don't want to go for it. You don't want to put yourself out there and then fail.
If someone else is going for it, now you look bad. Right.
So it's more about like,

it's the same thing as the guy gets his turn. It's all this, it's these unwritten rules, which unwritten rules exist everywhere.
Like

doctors,

when they do the residence, are supposed to stay up 48 hours straight, even though we know it kills patients. But the new doc, when they were going to change it.

recently, the older doctor was like, you cannot change. That is how we do it.
It's like, it doesn't even make sense.

But so there's just these things things that they make everybody do.

So that's one of the things. It also is a super white thing.
It is a very white thing.

So he loves a nickname.

And for the rest of his life, it would stay with him. And he said, quote, The Mick gave it to me.

The Mick? The Mick, Mickey Mantle.

Okay.

Despite

spending all of his time gambling and going everywhere with a man known only as the Cuban. Holy, what the fuck? That's kind of fear and loathing.
The Cuban.

Okay.

Pete was, he's doing well, and he landed a big league roster spot. Okay.

Started his career 0 and 13.

That was probably four games. I wonder if he was like, I need to shrink my stance more.
Yeah. I'd be like, Pete, what are you doing? He's like, I'm going to dwarf it.

I'm going to put my shoes on my knees. Here you go.

Yeah, so he was almost sent back to the minors.

But then after a month, things settled in and Pete starts paying attention to the pitchers. He has a really good memory.
He's got a really good memory. And

it was good enough that if he was pitched to in the same location twice, he was going to hit it. Oh, shit.

And he hustled enough to make an impact. And he ends up being voted National League Rookie of the Year.
Wow. For 1963.
Holy shit. He's 22.
He's on the map. Wow.
22. Yeah.

Big time on the map. Yeah.

Now,

one day at the track in the luxury boxes, Pete is looking through his binoculars, sees this beautiful woman, massive hair, gigantic hair. She's loud.
She's brassy.

Carol Engelhart.

Sure. Bossing around her friends.
He cannot get enough of this. Well, I mean,

you're always looking for a... woman with a huge head of hair.
Yeah. That's just shouting at her friends.
Yelling loud. That's what you want.
Yelling big hair just in charge

yeah yeah this this woman will be binocular out a woman too she'll be look at her terrible to me but block the she seems like a total fucking nightmare hold my binoculars boys

within months they're married wow

she's catholic so she wants a big catholic wedding sure uh she's a little embarrassed however when pete kept asking during during the ceremony if it was over yet

now if you've ever been been to a Catholic wedding, yeah, that's actually the most asked question. Dare I say, any wedding? No, no.

Really? Dude, a Catholic, a real Church of Catholic.

Holy fuck, dude. I mean,

get ready for your legs to be sore. Like, it just up, down, up, down.
It just never ends. It's crazy.

They're like two hours, the ceremony.

Yeah.

Or feel like two hours if they're not. I remember, yeah, the first time I went to one, I walked out and was just like, what in the fuck just happened?

The truth is, it's like any wedding you go to, like, more and more now people are like, quick. And you're just like, buddy, that is so appreciative.
Yeah. Like, the fact that we don't need to like

spend two hours

sitting there doing all this shit. Yeah, just get in.
Just quick. I love you.
Let's go. Party.
Party. I say bang them right there on the altar.
Well, that's very Scottish. Yeah, absolutely.

It's fortunate. Yeah,

over.

there we are. What do you mean I do? I bloody did.
I finished. Look at that.

And the reason he kept asking if the ceremony was over yet was because he had double-booked himself.

He's got a gamble.

He had scheduled to give a speech at a press banquet. Oh, wow.

So he leaves his own

wedding reception in his tux to give a speech to the press, which goes over very well. Sure.

But Carolyn pretty quickly realized that she's not really high up on the priority list of Pete Rose. Yeah.
Well, leaving your wedding to give a speech to reporters is a red flag.

Pete first, then baseball, then her. And even when they have their daughter, Fawn, and their son, Pete Jr.,

that's always Pete first and then baseball. Sure.

So Pete makes the All-Star team four to the next six years. He has the most hits.
He won the batting title twice.

He got to accompany baseball's living legend, Joe DiMaggio, to entertain the troops in Vietnam.

And boy, could they use it.

Why is that?

Because very quickly they realized that this war made no sense.

And they're like, wait, what's going on?

You're fighting communism.

Quote, I was in awe of this guy. I mean,

this guy was one of my heroes. I couldn't believe I'm riding helicopters with Joe DiMaggio.
It's hot. I mean, it's so goddamn hot you can't sleep.
And Joe says, I can't sleep. I got to take a shower.

So, the way you take a shower, you got this big bamboo thing up here, and you got to get up on a chair and you got to feed the water down.

So, I'm up on the thing feeding the water, and he's taking a shower. Best way to describe Joe DiMaggio is he's a penis with a man hanging off of him.

I mean, Joe DiMaggio.

There's some guys you don't have to say. Like, it's Joe.
It's Joe DiMaggio. You don't have to be like, oh, you had a big fucking

Joe DiMaggio. See, to me,

I don't really, not to be rude, it doesn't really bother me. I don't really care either way about who Joe DiMaggio is.
But I also do.

I picture Marilyn Monroe. That's what I'm on my picture.
Yeah, she got the hog is what they said.

She got the seven-year-inch. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, so she was maybe a huge spice queen.
Maybe.

Well, actually, the Kennedys, nah. There's no way the Kennedys have big ones.
I mean,

I don't know where this conversation's going. Yeah, we're talking about

this a new podcast, talk with Beast.

I don't want to talk about it. Not because I'm just picturing RFK's roided up dick.
His six-pack shit. You know, it's really lumpy and weird.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

And when he finishes, it's just like,

he takes it out and someone's like, did that get dragged? Yeah. And he's like, let me give you a shot.

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By

1970, Pete is one of the most famous players in the game of baseball.

All-star game was held in Cincinnati that year.

There's a very promising young catcher. for the Cleveland Indians named Ray Fossey.

And the night before, he and Pete, another player and their wives, have drink of Pete's, then they have dinner, and then they go back to Pete's for a nightcap.

Problem, this might be competitive to gain an advantage because Ray's on the other team, the American League team.

Pete goes to bed early, and Caroline has to figure out how to get everyone out and home. Okay.
So that sounds good. Leaves her with a tab.

For about eight and a half innings, the game is not good. Sure.
It's a game, so the National League plays the American League, the best players, and it didn't mean anything.

So it didn't often, no one cared. It was just like, oh, you get to watch these guys.
Yeah. Now they try to touch some meaning to it.

So in the bottom of the ninth, with the Ale up four to one, the National League finally rallies and ties the game. Up to this point, Pete is having a terrible game.
Pete is National League? Yeah.

Okay.

Nixon's there. There's 50 million.
Nixon's there? Yeah. Oh, geez.
There's 50 million people watching, and he's having a terrible game.

It's easily the largest audience he's ever been in front of. Sure.

In the bottom of 12, he does get a single.

He gets a second, and there's two outs. And if you're on second base and there's two outs,

once someone makes contact, you run. Like ordinarily, you'd wait to see if it's much.
If it's a fly ball, you wait. Yep.
Two outs, you run, no matter what.

So,

and he's the hustle guy, too, so he's going to run. So next batter hits a bloop single.
A bloop single? Yeah, like a little dinky hard shot. It's kind of a lucky one.
He falls in. Yeah.

Pete runs around third. The outfielder picks it up, throwing home.
Outfielder's got a good arm.

And

there's Ray Fossey. He's the catcher, his buddy.
And he's blocking the plate. Standing in front of the plate.

And so Pete can't do his head first,

his signature slides head first. Sliding isn't an option because he's going to be tagged.
That's nothing you're going to look up. Pete Rose sliding head first.
I think I know. This is where

his batting helmet drops off or whatever.

Yeah, totally.

He can't do that because it's too risky.

He can break his collarbones going into the catcher, right? You can do that at second, but the catcher is full of gears. Oh, he's not going to run into him.
Oh, that's what I thought was coming.

Well, no,

he can't slide feet first either because he would never get to the plate because the guy's blocking it.

And Pete said his dad is in the front row and he heard his voice in his head: quote, don't play like a sissy.

It's cool that that's the legacy. So he just spears spears him, spear tacks himself.
Yeah, right.

Hard. Yeah.
Really fucking hard. Today we would call it giving him a concussion.
Like a CT move.

The collision is

like people can't believe what they just saw. They are in the stadium.
There are 10 seconds of silence. Oh, Jesus.
Back then, too. Until the crowd realized that Fosse never even had the ball.

The ball didn't get to him. He hit him before he had the ball.
What the fuck?

Pete scores, and the National League wins again, eighth time in a row. Who cares about Fosse?

They fucking won.

May I watch it quickly? Sure. You can watch it.

I'll say this while you're watching it.

Fossey doesn't get up. Oh, God.

He once, he's a tough guy. He once got hit in the ear by a foul ball.
A chunk of his ear came flying off. There was blood dripping on his neck, and

he stayed in the game. So he's Christ.
He's a tough guy. And Fosse is now clutching his shoulder and rolling around in the dirt.

Okay.

All of his AFL American League buddies, including Pete's old friend, Frank Robinson, are saying things like, quote, I don't know why he hit him so hard.

I don't think it was necessary to be that aggressive in a game that doesn't mean much.

And that dirty SOB could have slid around him. Yeah, well, the fact that he doesn't have the ball.

I mean, that's how you played baseball back. But that's still fucking crazy.
Watching that just now,

that is absolutely nuts. It is.
It is. So

there's two kinds of.

In that play, normally, if the catcher has the ball, you're basically just trying to knock the ball out. And if the catcher lets go of the ball and you touch the base, you're safe.

Yeah, you're trying to knock him. So the whole point of hitting the catcher is to

knock the ball out of his hand. Yeah, knock him so he can't hold onto the ball, which means

hitting him really hard. Concost.
So that's what baseball was.

It's brutal. It's crazy.
Even when, you know, I always liked baseball back then. Even back then, I'd just be like, what are you doing? Yeah.
And there were guys who loved doing it.

And there are other guys who are like, no.

There's a guy, Chase Utley, who was on the Dodgers, and he was. a big guy who did that.

And I talked to a guy who was on one of his teams, and he was like, oh, yeah, we all fucking, we mostly all hated it.

I mean, there are a couple guys that liked it but that's the really weird skill to have well you're you because you're also you know you're playing against a guy who is making his living playing the sport and you could end that tomorrow right so that's why you know it's not great that's why it's awesome to watch yeah that's why you're just like wow this guy's life could change But that didn't, that changed like 10 years ago.

They changed it and they call it the Buster Posey rule because Buster Posey got taken out and he was out for a season.

So now you can't

run into people anymore.

It's just, and by the way, look at how the country's gone down to the toilets and stuff like that. There's still guys mad about it.
It's just fucking buster. Fucking buster posing.

He's like, all right, buddy. Well, sorry, we can't ruin careers for you anymore.

Well,

football obviously has a much different problem because tackling is obviously part of the sport. But if you watch the old Monday night football intro, dude, it's crazy.
It's all illegal.

It's everything. Everything's illegal.
Everything's illegal.

And then the like when they're going to the commentators, it's two helmets that just smash into the whole thing was they were just like, we need to ruin brains.

Yeah, these guys are killing each other. Yeah, and it's awesome.
Yeah, it's really nuts.

So this was the beginning of the, so Ray, Ray Fossey's career was plateau going up and then it went down.

He was thought to be the next great catcher in baseball. His shoulder injury was was then misdiagnosed by a team doctor.

He was leg.

He's mostly leg.

He played with a fractured and separated shoulder, which then healed wrong. So his follow-through emotion was ruined forever,

and he'd never be as good of a hand. He liked doctors back then.

Like sports doctors. Yeah.
This is nice. Yeah.

It looks like a batwing. That's where we need you.
That's it, Ray.

Yeah, so he could have been one of the great. He's still considered a great in Cleveland, but he could have been like, you know, Johnny Bench great.
Sure, he could have been like a real city great.

Now, the opposite side of that is Pete Rose.

This is his big coming out on the national stage. It cemented him as Charlie Hussell.
Get that boy to Vietnam.

Kind of the king of playing hard, not being a sissy.

Dudes are, what are we? That's crazy. Like, you think men are bad now? 70s men?

Oh, my God. The holes that we were trying to fill in ourselves that would never be fixed.

The whole thing of just like, you don't want to be sissy. You gay.
I'm not gay. Yeah, that's all it was.

That year, the Reds went to the World Series, but they lost.

But this is the very beginning. Why didn't Pete just go in the dugout and beat some of them with a bass? That's a good point.
Charlie hustle them. Not a sissy.
Yeah.

This, however, would be the, it's the beginning of one of the great super teams in baseball, which would be nicknamed the Big Red Machine. Okay.

So in 1972, the Reds made and lost their second World Series, and Pete was in a massive slump. He only hit 214.
He had almost as many strikeouts as hits. Okay.

That October in Baltimore, federal agents raided the home of a famous Maitre D in Little Italy. What is that?

It'd be great. They're like breaking the door down.
He's like, and how many are you?

I don't know if we can do 15. We do, I don't know.

They found betting records

and a notebook with the names of 11 pro umpires. Oh, man.

MLB Brass and local officials spiked the story, just a minor item, they said. And the case was closed before it got going.
Okay.

In 1973, Pete is now pissed. He

is that just the seed you've tossed? Yeah, maybe.

He couldn't do shit in the playoffs. Okay.
And now the Reds stink for the first half of the season. They're falling way behind the Dodgers, who's their main competitor.

And Pete one day marches up to Dodger Ron Say on the field before a game and snarled, quote, the only way you're going to beat us in September is if our fucking plane goes down. Jesus, Pete.

Say he's fun. He's a fun guy.
That's just being fun on the field. He's just having a good time with your buddies.

Hey, Pete, don't say that sort of shit, dude. I'm a little like not into flying.

Pete and the Reds go on a tear for the rest of the year, and they beat the Dodgers in September. And then their plane crashed.
Pete won his third batting title, his only MVP.

He became the fifth position player in MLB history to win with five or fewer home runs.

Wow. That is crazy.
That's how good he is at contact hitting. That's crazy.
Yeah.

So getting pissed and making his opponents pissed are part of his game at this point. It's how he plays the game.
Sure.

In the National League Championship Series that year, the Reds played the Mets, who had only finished three games over 500.

So they're in two different divisions. So the other division, they're not that good, but they won it.
Right.

But

the Reds win game one and the Mets win game two, and then they're up nine to two in game three. Reds are.
No, the Mets. The Mets are up nine to two in game three.

And so the Reds have no chance to win that game. Just doesn't matter.
They're not going to catch him.

And Pete's furious.

So he tries to stop a double play by launching himself into second baseman Bud Harrelson. So he's doing, he's starting to take guys out physically.
Taking a guy out, yeah. Sure.

Yeah.

He doesn't break out the play. He almost breaks Harrelson.
Sure.

Who isn't happy?

A lot of a lot of... Sounds like sissy talk.
Well, there's a line. There's breaking up a double play, and then there's a dirty play.
Sure. And he was like, that's a dirty play.

So that's like that fine line when they start fighting.

That just clear.

It's a for real brawl.

You don't really see this anymore in baseball.

The last one I remember was between the Cardinals and the Giants, and it was like, I want to say early 90s, and like guys came out with broken ribs and shit.

Like it went on and you're like, my God, they're killing people down there.

It's crazy to watch when it happens.

And punches are being thrown like crazy. And Harrison later bragged about stopping Pete Rose's fist with his face.
Oh, Jesus Christ. Dude, seriously, like, what the fuck? Isn't it, I mean, again,

we're dealing with total psychopaths now, but

the bravado of...

I do believe that when people say, you know, there was, this is when there was lead in the gasoline. And I do think that that is like a legitimate thing.
Like it was.

And it made people out of their fucking minds. Right.

What's our excuse now?

So Pete's not happy. The crowd isn't happy with him.

And when he went back to the outfield, play stopped for 10 minutes at Shea Stadium because the crowd was pelting him with everything they had. Okay.

When an empty bottle of Jack Daniels sailed by his head, Pete picked it up and threw it right back into the crowd.

Are you sneaking in a bottle of Jack Daniels? It's fine. It's the mess.
I'm all over the place,

you know what I mean? The same we're talking about: everyone being made fun of for being a sissy, and there's like physical abuse happening, and all that.

And then all of a sudden, it's like, but you can also. You're bringing in bottles of Jack Daniels, empty bottles of Jack Daniels.
I mean, well, you emptied it. Yeah, oh, yeah, absolutely.

Of Of course, you're going to throw it if you emptied a bottle of Jack Daniels.

That was logic. Jesus Christ, you can bring in fucking containers.
So we used to just bring in a cooler. Oh, yeah.
And you'd put the fucking liquor in that.

Oh, yeah.

I remember like when I, I'm serious, I was probably like 17. A canteen is what I'm thinking of.
Like a, like a.

But you, you could just bring, like, I had like a sprite bottle and it was full of vodka and it was like, daddy, well, they'll never notice that. Right, that's right.

And then your shit faced out of your mouth.

Yeah.

I mean, I actually do remember the throw-up I had the first time when I, this is a very Milwaukee day, but I snuck the vodka into County Stadium, drank most of the vodka, was so drunk I was sick.

And then later that night at a bowling alley, I remember throwing up hot dog chunks coming out of my nostrils. A very Milwaukee day.

That's the song that ends.

It was very true.

Throwing up County Stadium hot dogs through your nostrils in a bowling alley. That should be like a little promo, you know, like they do.
Yeah, the Morrison Miller-like.

That should be the Milwaukee rig. Yeah, by the way, I've already told you the more you know campaigns.
It's really tough to watch now.

Ending the more you know with a Jenna Bush state.

I'm sorry. No.
I know.

So

the Mets had to come out of their dugout to settle the crowd down because it's about to get fucking crazy.

The Reds lose, as they were always going to lose,

but it lit up Pete. Now Pete is fired up.
Because he's an enemy. Well, yeah, he's a bad enemy.
He gets going on it.

He's a villain. After the game, he said, quote, I'm no damn girl out there.
I'm supposed to give the fans their money's worth and try to bust up double plays and shortstops.

So he's just a fucking dick. That's a dick.
There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on.
There's a lot of society times and then there's a lot of personal pete-ishes. Yeah.

So game four is tense. It goes into extra innings.
Pete comes to bat.

He knew the pitcher and he knew what to expect and he made the mistake of throwing the same pitch twice.

Even though he'd only hit five home runs all year, he crushed it and won the game.

He hit 381 for the series. Didn't matter.
The Mets still won the last two games and said the Reds packing. Wow.

So by 1974, Pete had begun running around on Carolyn, who was raising their two young kids. Her hair was probably less big.
Yeah. Which is just, that's a turnoff.
Yeah. You got to have, keep the hair.

if i meet you and you've got the enormous hair keep it poofing sorry keep it poofing carrot top

um and she's home taking care of the kids it's the classic thing a friend said pete had a girl in every town and when i say girl gareth i mean girl

as early as 1973 pete was calling a 14 or 15 year old girl regularly She says they started sleeping together in 1974.

Having sex with a 16-year-old was technically legal in Ohio, but Gareth, she wasn't 16. And he couldn't wait.
He couldn't wait.

According to the victim, Pete repeatedly committed statutory rape and took her to states where the age of consent was 18. Gareth, that's trafficking.
Oh my god, that's Carolyn knew

what was going on, and she begins distancing herself from Pete. I don't understand it.

This is not going to be one of those clips that ages horribly when you find out that I text 15-year-old women. I don't understand it.
I don't understand

what about that

skid friend of the show Chris DeLeah on the whole. Oh, stop it.

Stop it.

You see cries at the end of his last special. Did he? Yeah.

Because he feels bad.

Are you serious? For his dad.

Because his dad went through a lot.

What about the girls? Well, what about

again a tattoo of him?

Okay. Well, dude.

Oh, really, dude? Okay.

Whatever.

So what? Those are good points. I mean...
Yeah, no, it's a good point. Nobody's trying to steal their pro like, that sucks.
Sorry that you got the fucking debt. Sorry.

But

his dad.

Looks older. His dad, the guy who's already like a multi-millionaire from Russia.

five everybody's crackers just got a little heated and and he used his power to get that piece of shit on every show in fucking

when caroline so carolyn's not mad she goes on a local daytime talk show in cincinnati and the lady host is jokingly prodding her quote i mean so pete bangs little girls what's that like

quote i mean he's not the type to be jealous of is he

well said Carolyn, wouldn't you be jealous? And the host tried to guide Carolyn to a nicer, friendly answer. Quote, I mean, it's not like he runs around, the host said.

Carolyn hesitates.

Well,

she wasn't sure what she's... The host isn't sure what she's supposed to say next.

No, yeah, well, nervous laughter breaks out on the set, which saves the moment.

I don't know if any moment got saved. You're reading it.
I don't think a moment got saved.

Well, it stopped. How's that? Sure.

Here's the crazy thing about Pete.

Well, there's a lot of crazy things about Pete, but when his personal life is falling apart, when things are getting worse, he plays better. Yeah.

I do get that. I guess I could see that.
I get that.

I wouldn't be like that.

When the stalker was making me go crazy,

it was like to actually have a zone where your brain could kind of leave that alone. Yeah.
It's locked in in a different way. Yeah, I get it.
In 1975, he led the league in doubles and runs.

He was fifth in MVP voting. In the playoffs, he was even better.
They swept the Pirates. Pete hit 357, leading his team in advanced stats and winning the NLCS MVP.

They made the World Series for the third time in six years and would play a very good Boston Red Sox team.

Red Sox win the first game. In the second game, Bill Spaceman Lee

had a 2-1 lead in the top of the ninth and he gave up a hit and Boston's manager pulled him.

The Reds then scored two runs and won the game. So it goes to game seven.

Again, Bill Spaceman Lee has the lead. I feel like we've covered this outcome before on the show, but I still have no clue what happens.
3-0 in in the sixth.

Gareth, you don't even know what happened with 98% of the things on this show. So, of course, you're not going to know what happened in the game.
First of all, don't love your stats.

Second of all, don't care for your attitude. Third, thought we were fucking being buddies, and here you are stabbing your friend.

Fourth, I don't even remember what one was. Yeah.
Three to zero lead in the sixth. Pete's on first.

Johnny Bench hit a double play ball to the shortstop,

who flipped it to the second baseman right as Pete Rose is barreling into him. Jesus Christ, Pete, leave him be.
Just like he did to Bud Harrelson and Ray Fossey.

The second baseman leaped over Pete.

That was very common back then. Sure.
To get out of it, you had to jump over people running into you. Right.

And sailed his throne to the Red Sox dugout. Johnny Bench goes to second.

The inning would have been over if not for Pete's try-hard dick move. Yeah.

That isn't isn't a Charlie Hustle move. There's someone who's just like, my livelihood.
I'm going to take this guy out. Yeah.

Spaceman's manager tells him not to throw his famous pitch, which is the Ephes curve. Yeah.
So the Ephes curve is cartoonishly slow. It's ridiculous.

It makes hitters look really dumb because you're like, how could he not hit that slowest pitch? But they're so prepped for a fast.

And they're just not.

They're just not used to pitches that slow. Like teams still, like you'll see it a lot in high school.
They'll bring in a guy who throws really slow after a fast guy. Right.
Because you can't adjust.

Right.

Fuck that, fuck him. That's what Spaceman thinks.
He's like, fuck that.

Classic Spaceman. So he throws the Iphus pitch.

The guy waiting is waiting for it, and he hits a home run.

And then later, Pete hit the game time single and then scored the game-winning run, and the Big Red Machine finally won their first World Series.

Charlie Hussell proved he could do it in the playoffs. He was named the MVP.

The Boston Globe couldn't stand the way he played, sarcastically calling him the Reds, the Reds' badge of courage and the Protestant ethic rounding third. What the fuck?

The Protestant ethic rounding third is the Protestant ethic? It's the fucking, the Protestant work ethic. Oh, the Protestant work ethic.
So, right. Protestant ethic rounding third.
Right. So there's.

It's a great slant.

So it's a pro-Catholic slant. Yeah.
And it's a great slant. Right, okay.
Because the Protestant ethic has fucking partially destroyed the world. Like, it's really bad.
I don't agree.

The Reds were the team of Destiny that year, the next year, winning the World Series again, this time over the Yankees.

But they would have never won that World Series if he hadn't taken out that guy at second. Right.
So he is rewarded. Sure.

Yeah. And so that's the end of

part one.

Well,

yeah,

there's more to learn, I guess. but it definitely seems like

Charlie Hustle,

there's a good amount of abuse in the game.

And so far, a guy that I guess I always felt a modicum of sympathy towards Pete Rose, and

that's changed

pretty quickly.

Pretty quickly.

Yeah.

This is

Josh Androwski did the research. Charlie Hustle, the Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball by Keith O'Brien.
Charlie Hustle and the Matter of Pete Rose by Mark Monroe.

The King, the hit king, Pete Rose and Purgatory by Scott Rabb, and baseballreference.com.

Well, there you go. Hanging on.
Yo, hanging on your t-shirts.

What could be better than seeing Gareth Reynolds do stand-up? Go to GarethReynolds.com for tickets and information. I will be in Omaha on November 28th and 29th.

I will be in Vancouver, British Columbia on December 2nd, Seattle, Washington, December 3rd, Eugene, Oregon, December 4th. Then I will also be in Kansas City, Missouri doing a makeup show.

Come on, everybody. Shake off the new year, January 2nd, January 3rd.
And just announced, I will be back in Portland, Oregon at Helium Comedy Club on February 6th and February 7th.

That's going to be a five-show weekend over two nights. So go to GarethReynolds.com for tickets and information.
Join me.