There was a time that Cincinnati's Pete Rose visited The Pound
A remembrance of baseball's hit king who died today at the age of 83.
There was a time that Cincinnati Reds baseball player Pete Rose visited The Pound. That’s Pound, Virginia for you folks that don’t identify with “The Pound”.
The Pound is known for many things. The town is the hometown of famed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers. It was the town in which actor Tommy Lee Jones was arrested by the Wise County Sheriff’s Department while on break from filming “Coal Miner’s Daughter”.
It is a town that received national and international notoriety for its ban against dancing in establishments. There’s even a story about the time the Harlem Globetrotters made a stop in Pound.
I won’t go into that story but I do want to talk about a visit that Rose made to The Pound when I was but a youngster in school. All thanks to a Pound business proprietor who was a Reds super fan.
Pound’s Bruce Pilkenton was a season ticket holder of the Cincinnati Reds and sat above the dugout in old Riverfront Stadium. There’s even stories that he could go in the dugout at any time and that he even rubbed elbows with the members of the Big Red Machine.
The legendary exploits of the Pound Phillips 66 service station owner were the stuff of legends. So, it’s only fitting that Bruce invited Pete Rose to speak to the masses at Pound High School.
I was in elementary school and I was obsessed with the Reds. I had a Scholastic book about Johnny Bench that I had just bought along with the Reds baseball jacket and white Reds jersey that my mother had ordered for me from Baseball Digest.
I was flying high.
Then I heard about Pete Rose coming to The Pound to talk baseball and more. My mom was a bigger Pete Rose fan than I was but I agreed to go.
It was there I probably made my second foray into journalism. The first being Ms. Christina Edwards second grade class, delivering a morning news report because I found out her husband was a news reporter. In retrospect, it was clearly for brownie points.
Ah, back to my second foray into journalism. As Rose finished speaking to many that crowded Pound High School’s legendary gym, the floor was opened for questions from the audience.
I stood up from my chair on the gym floor, to the right of the stage and the podium and posed a question to baseball’s Charlie Hustle.
“Do you plan to do any movies or anything?” I asked.
I’ll never forget the look of bewilderment from him. It’s as though time came to a screeching halt. At that point Rose’s steely stare locked me into his crosshairs, and a boyish, mischievous grin began to take shape on my face. As his lips moved, he fired off his lightning quick response.
“Me do movies? With a face like this?”
I smiled, trying to look satisfied with his response but feeling embarrassed that I asked such a “stupid” question. I carefully sat back down in my chair. Mom patted my knee as if to say good job for my effort and having the nerve to stand up and ask a question.
The audience was still laughing at Pete’s response to my question.
Unfazed by the embarrassment in my eyes, I went up later and got Rose’s autograph. I had found a new hero in baseball.
Playing games of baseball in Little League, I wanted to stand at the plate like Pete. I wanted to steal base and slide head first into base like Pete. I wanted to knock the opposing team’s catcher, flat on his rump for “blocking” home plate.
I was a Pete Rose fan.
But it was right after that I became disappointed with Pete Rose when he left for the Phillies. It just wasn’t the same in Cincinnati anymore. It wasn’t the same Reds team.
I mean the Reds won back to back World Series championships in 1975 and 1976, and I thought that should mean something but there was this little thing called free agency and the dismantling of the Reds began.
I was bitter. I even searched for a new team briefly embracing the Atlanta Braves but I could only stand so much of the Braves being touted as America’s Team.
In the end, I came back to Cincinnati and the Reds.
I can’t explain the joy I felt when Rose came back to the Reds from the Montreal Expos to become a player/manager for the Reds. Excitement was back in baseball. He would later set the all time hits record back at Cincinnati. Then came the fall from grace and the pedestal all of us had set him on.
Pete Rose had bet on baseball.
I didn’t want to believe it but based upon what they did to Shoeless Joe Jackson and the others involved in the famed Black Sox Scandal, Rose would be doomed never to enter Cooperstown. He later admitted he did bet on baseball, bet on the Reds and asked to be re-considered for the Hall of Fame.
It was a time in which we heard the name of John Dowd, the “investigator” and author of the 228 page “Dowd Report” detailing Rose actions and involvement.
I thought we had heard the last of John Dowd but then in 2018, he is named special counsel to then-president Donald Trump.
Well , Major League Baseball saw fit to lower the boom on Rose. From Bart Giamatti to Fay Vincent, to Bud Selig and right on down to Baseball’s Wonder Commissioner Rob Manfred. Selig heard Rose’s appeal to be re-considered and contemplated making the move to reinstate him under certain conditions.
Rose claimed he had done what they had asked of him but here’s the sad reality of it; Bud Selig was no commissioner. He was a team owner doing what the team owners wanted in a “banana republic” baseball government. In the end, Selig did nothing.
Rob Manfred promised a close review before he was named MLB Commissioner and then flatly refused to consider Rose again. Over time, there would be other allegations against Rose as time went on, going out with underage girls while playing for the Reds. Anyway you looked at the painting in the gallery of this baseball legend, it depicted a baseball star and his fall back to earth after reaching heights of unrivaled glory.
And now we come to the day many of us thought would never happen. Pete Rose died on Monday at the age of 83 at his home in Las Vegas.
It’s still hard to fathom that Charlie Hustle is gone.
I hope that MLB will one day find the backbone to put Rose on the ballot for Cooperstown. Chances are as long as Manfred is in charge, we won’t see the day of Charlie Hustle being selected posthumously for the Hall.
Everybody makes mistakes, that was the phrase I read on a Facebook post prior to writing this up. Sure, everybody does make mistakes. Rose did and knew if he got caught, he would never make it to Cooperstown.
Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame for his accomplishments as a player on the field.
I don’t know if I will live to see the day that Pete is inducted into the Hall of Fame but I can say I was there the day Pete Rose came to The Pound.
Rest in Peace, Charlie Hustle.
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I never knew he came that close to home. I, too, was a Reds fan until Carlton Fisk's homer in 1975's game 6; I felt sorry for Boston after they lost game 7 and have been a Redsox fan since. Good article, Rod.
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