Charlie Hustle has Hustled for the Last Time.

September 30, 2024 6:07 PM

Pete Rose Dead at 83 Leaving behind a very complicated history full of on the field accomplishments and a disastrous personal life - including allegations of statutory rape, tax evasion and the betting scandal that led to his permanent ineligibility.
posted by drewbage1847 (16 comments total)

Also today, Dikembe Motumbo. Even as a Sonics fan, one loss hits harder than the other. One seemeded like a good human, and not just a sports star.

While he was a great player, he gambled on his team. No forgiveness.
posted by Windopaene at 6:20 PM on September 30 [6 favorites]

An MLB representative, commenting from the MGM Bet Makers podium in the DraftKings studio, offered their condolences, but reminded fans that Rose was banned for gambling, which is completely unacceptable to the league. They also plugged a first $100 in bets free promo from FanDuel.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:32 PM on September 30 [41 favorites]

Plus he always had such a...sour expression, like his soul was curdled.

I remember when Dikembe burst on the scene, and he looked wonderfully different: all knees and elbows and impossibly long legs. I was a young kid and also the smallest in my family, though, so maybe some of that was my issues.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:33 PM on September 30 [4 favorites]

Rose was slated to pass on in 2016 but he bet the Grim Reaper eight years that the Cubs would beat Cleveland in the World Series.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:42 PM on September 30 [6 favorites]

He served his lifetime ban. Let him in the HoF now. Same with Shoeless Joe.
posted by S'Tella Fabula at 7:03 PM on September 30 [10 favorites]

.

I never understood why the ban was maintained for so long and who he must have pissed off to earn it.

Great title.
posted by Sphinx at 7:05 PM on September 30 [1 favorite]

I think the real reason he was kept banned was the way he trickle truthed his gambling activities. "I never placed bets", "I bet on other sports", "Ok, fine I bet on baseball games, but never on my teams", "Ok, yes I bet on games with my team, but only to win", "fine, to lose too"
posted by drewbage1847 at 7:15 PM on September 30 [4 favorites]

I don’t believe he ever actually admitted to betting against his team. The rest, yes.
posted by atoxyl at 7:28 PM on September 30 [3 favorites]

That's right - what he changed was "I only ever bet when I was a manager, not as a player" and then it came out that he did bet as a player as well - but no documented proof that he bet on them to lose.
posted by drewbage1847 at 7:58 PM on September 30 [4 favorites]

I watched the fantastic 4-part HBO ("Max") Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose series recently and they make it pretty clear he fumbled pretty much every single step of the way since his lifetime ban, in an attempt to get in that Hall Of Fame. drewbage above summarized it pretty well (though, like atoxyl says, he maintains he never bet against the team). They show footage going back to when the whole thing blew up and he changed his story several times, and every single time said "there. I've admitted my faults. I told the whole truth".

(fast forward 10 years, showing footage of how bad it really was)

"Okay, NOW I'm ready to tell the full story ...."

(fast forward 10 years, showing more footage of more bad shit he still didn't admit)

"Okay, okay, here's what ALSO happened ..."

Rinse, repeat. You can see that when all the other parts about the story turned out to be true, despite his denials of each piece over the last 40 years, the MLB might not consider his word as final.

There's also a through-line about his storytelling and his own lore where, yeah, he did some pretty incredible things and a lot of it can be verified, but so many of his other stories, interviews, excuses, explanations, just don't add up or are outright provably false. Then you throw in his constant other fumbles - ex : a young woman journalist asks him about some past indiscretions regarding underage girls and he says "that was 55 years ago, babe!" - and somehow he thought "yeah, I've still got a fighting chance!".

I wouldn't be surprised if they give him posthumous inclusion at some point, but I agree Shoeless Joe should be in there first.
posted by revmitcz at 8:04 PM on September 30 [4 favorites]

One aspect of Rose’s career and its aftermath that doesn’t get talked about much is the fact that – as this New Yorker article from a couple months back points out – he was in many ways Cincinnati’s proverbial Great White Hope, which earned him a degree of sympathy and forgiveness for his transgressions denied to other, darker players.
posted by non canadian guy at 8:48 PM on September 30

The actual reason he was “banned” was that he volunteered to quietly leave baseball forever if the powers that be dropped their investigations into his interactions with women, not of which who were of legal age.

That of that before making the same tired “brought to you by DraftKings” type joke that everyone always makes.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 8:57 PM on September 30 [2 favorites]

.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 9:15 PM on September 30

I never liked him because he competed at least as hard against his own teammates as he did against the opposing team.

He made everyone around him worse on purpose so he could shine the brighter.
posted by jamjam at 10:06 PM on September 30

so many of his other stories, interviews, excuses, explanations, just don't add up or are outright provably false.

Forget it Jake, it's baseball.

(Charlie Hustle was a great nickname for Rose; lots and lots of frenetic energy, generally misdirected.)
posted by chavenet at 11:58 PM on September 30

Pete Rose dismisses statutory rape questions at Phillies bash

"It was 55 years ago, babe," Rose told a female baseball writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

posted by Nelson at 12:03 AM on October 1