A Rose offer I can pass on (again)

Pete Rose was in Conover on Tuesday, a guest of the Hickory Sportsman’s Club. The club made Rose available to the media Tuesday afternoon. I thought about driving up, but I saw Rose this summer, and the image still is so perfect I didn’t want to clutter it.

I was in Las Vegas in June with my kids. You have your family vacations, we have ours. We were walking to Caesar’s Palace, and on the way passed through a huge mall that includes every top-of-the-line store you can envision, plus several huge mechanical top-of-the-line, but lower-level deities.

My older son wanted to spend some money, mine as it would turn out, since he had lost his playing blackjack. As we walked into the store we saw a counter in front. Sitting at the counter was a guy who looked a lot like Pete Rose, who became legendary for hitting a lot of singles and making a lot of terrible bets.

Next to Rose were two assistants and a man who acted like a carnival barker. Step right up ladies and gentlemen, walk into the sporting goods store, spend some money, lots of money, and you can pick up a voucher that will get you an autograph from Mr. Pete Rose!

Nobody did. Middle of the day, mall packed, and nobody was in line. Everybody had better things to do.

This is how I want to remember Pete: a guy selling his name to people who didn’t want to buy it.

Comments

[david McKnight]

Tom--

I just can't believe that all those things they said about Pete are true. Besides, everybody knows, folks in Cincinnati always comport themselves properly. When's the last time you saw a Cincinnatian acting uncouth or behaving in a crude manner?

Pete Rose always reminded me of our great Garinger High School baseball player Skippy Hull, who was a real team leader for the GHS Wildcats back in the mid '60s when I was sports editor at the Garinger High School Rambler, which was the second best newspaper job I ever had, the first being a stint as an editorial writer for North Carolina's oldest newspaper, the Fayetteville Observer, ten years later in the mid '70s.

Tom, could it all have been some kind of anti-Garinger plot?

Now, as a musician, I consider Pete Rose to be my clubhouse coach for sprinting between second (N.C. State) and third (Carolina) as a forlorn Dukie trying to get around the bases to home plate (Charlotte).

I'm going for a Pete Rose record of sorts--most fiddle tunes played (lifetime) in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

And since David Letterman looks a lot like my older brother Pete, when Pete Rose was on the Letterman show recently, it was "Pete and Dave" like old times back home, only I naturally had to identify with Pete since my own brother Pete looks and talks so much like Dave!

If this sounds confusing, then just tell all those Charlotte high school fans of Carolina and Duke what one veteran utility reserve player has learned: you can go from Carolina to Duke but you can't go from Duke to Carolina unless you go by way of State, whose baseball uniforms are the closest thing to the Cincinnati Reds in the entire ACC.

But nothing up here beats being on press row for a Garinger-Myers Park or Garinger-Harding game in any sport, so I will just close by opining:

"A rose is a rose is a rose," for Pete's sake! Charlie Hustle is bound to come through this thing some time even if it takes extra innings.

[billy]

Just what was the previous guy smokeing?