RIP Rose

[beuycek]

Sept 30, 2024 21:52:14 GMT -5 mscott59 said:

Sept 30, 2024 21:40:42 GMT -5 canefan said:

Always heard he was a real asshole. Don't typically pay a lot of attention to such reports, but i remember a Pete quote. Can't remember the context, he was still playing at the time. In short he said if you got tired of your wife just toss her a million and move on.

during my TV reporting days, I did get a chance to hang out with Pete a little bit. In the late 80s I worked in Charleston, West Virginia, which was definitely Reds country and part of the preseason caravan for their radio network. When he arrived at our station, he got out of a Cadillac limo, was wearing a red, silk tracksuit, tennis shoes that were kind of bedazzled and one of the thicker gold chains I had ever seen a white guy wear at that time in my life. He also had on his arm, a very busty blonde, which was his girlfriend at the time I think.

He did love talking baseball and once the lights were on his interview with our Sports Director was frankly awesome to watch from behind the cameras in the studio. But when they were off, he expected a lot of things to be done for him and made that very well known all afternoon that he was there. About 10 years prior I was in Cincinnati. One of my high school buddies went to UC there we went and saw the Reds play Montreal the night that he got his 3000th hit off Steve Rogers. the night before we went downtown to hang out a little bit and to our shock Pete was there at the bar we went to with an entourage , and he was making fun of anybody in the bar that wasn’t part of his group and I mean loudly dissing folks. Of course his entourage discouraged most of the folks who had a different opinion about themselves than Pete did about them. We didn’t hang out very long because we feared getting in the middle , yes he was an asshole. Of course, there have been and will always be plenty of assholes in sports on the pro level. It’s not a reason to keep a model of Hall of Fame.

My Dad's HS and college catcher came down to Florida every year and traveled the state watching the Reds in Spring Training. Cincinnati had moved from Tampa to Plant City and we went to the game with him one day. Snagged a BP home run ball and decided to drive out to the Tampa hotel Pete did his daily radio interviews from to get it signed. I was young, maybe 15 at the time and waited patiently for commercial breaks to get the BP ball signed. As I waited, I watched all of the people in front of me getting autographs and never once did Pete look up at them, shake their hand or acknowledge their existence. He did the same with me. I was crushed.

After the show, he collected his blonde arm piece and hustled to his Porsche 911 that was parked right outside the front door. He was an asshole, for sure.