Charlie Hustle

If you grew up watching baseball in the Cincinnati, OH area then you know who Charlie Hustle is. Every kid and adult that watched the Cincinnati Reds baseball team between 1963 and 1990 loved him and wanted to be him. Charlie Hustle played the game the right way, the way that we teach our kids to play and with an intensity that was matched by no other player. He played hard every day and never tried to show off or to show up his competitors. If he was hit by a pitch or walked, he would simply drop his bat and run, not walk or jog, to first base. Most people don’t know who Charlie Hustle is they only know him by his given name, Pete Rose. They don’t remember all of the great things that he did on the baseball field they only know that he was arrested for tax evasion and that he is banned from baseball for gambling on it. Charlie Hustle holds more records in baseball than any other player in the history of the game. The one record that he is most notable for is one of baseball’s greatest records of all time. He holds the record for having the most career hits (4,256) of all time. Most experts would even go as far to say that this record will never be broken. Although he holds this record he will never be accepted into the Baseball Hall of Fame because while he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds he was caught gambling on the Reds. You may say to yourself “what is the big deal about gambling, people do it all of the time.” Gambling on baseball while you have any dealings with the game is the biggest unspoken rule in the game. Pete Rose’s gambling problem is the reason for his down fall from greatness in baseball. While some people do remember his as one of the greatest players in our generation, most people will only know and remember him for betting on not only baseball, but on the Cincinnati Reds while he was still their manager. He claims that he got into gambling on baseball because that is the sport that he knew the best and that managing just didn’t give him the same rush as baseball did so he needed some other form of excitement. Once the baseballs commissioner (Bart Giamatti) caught wind of Pete Rose gambling he hired John Dowd, and ex FBI agent, to investigate Pete Rose to try to prove that he was gambling on baseball. Once the Commissioner presented Pete Rose with the “Dowd Report,” he voluntarily accepted to be put on baseballs permanent ineligible list. Even though Pete Rose is considered one of baseball’s greatest players he will never be enshrined at the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is in the Hall of Fame but his statue never will be. Since he does hold the most records in baseball his name is seen more than any other players in the Hall of Fame. Had he never started gambling on baseball, especially the very team that he was managing; he without a doubt would be enshrined at the Hall of Fame. If he wouldn’t have been caught gambling more people would know him as Charlie Hustle the great baseball player and not Pete Rose the gambler.

Rose, P., & Hill, R. (2004). Pete Rose: My prison without Bars. Emmaus: Rodale.