Rose couldn't have picked a worst time to go back to Cooperstown for the HOF ceremonies with that NBA referee stuff out there right now.
Pete Rose resurfaces in Cooperstown after four-year hiatus
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- For four years Pete Rose did his best to appease Major League Baseball. He said he'd gotten the hint that if he wanted any chance of finally getting reinstated he better stay away from this quaint town on the sport's biggest weekend of the year.
So that's exactly what he did. Rose stopped coming to Cooperstown, stopped creating a sideshow by signing autographs down the street from the Hall of Fame.
"I was a good boy," Rose said.
But four years have passed and what does he have to show for it? He stands no closer to returning to baseball, and in the meantime he has lost out on the thousands of dollars that he would have made in signing autographs.
So guess where Rose was when Hall of Fame weekend officially kicked off here on Friday? He spent three hours in the morning and another two in the afternoon inside a collectible shop down the road from the Hall of Fame, signing for fans willing to pay between $65-to-95. He's going to do the same Saturday, and then on Sunday.
And he's not going to apologize for that.
"Nothing's happened, so I can't ... I can't ... this is a big weekend," Rose, 66, told Newsday before his afternoon session. "This is a big weekend for anyone who is in the autograph business, and I'm in the autograph business."
This is how baseball's all-time hit king makes his living, signing autographs. He does it 15 days a month at a Las Vegas memorabilia store. But you better believe he would much rather be working in the game he loves, the game he was permanently suspended from in 1989 for gambling.
"Next month, August 24, will be the 18th year I've been suspended," he said. "That's a long time to be suspended for betting on your own team to win. It was wrong. I was absolutely wrong, no question about it. I wish it didn't happen, but it did. Fans are willing to put it behind them and move on. Other people just won't ... Jiminy crickets."
While Rose wouldn't identify whose those people are, clearly he was referring to commissioner Bud Selig, who has refused to overturn the suspension. "I met with Bud a couple of times, but that's ... Bud has his own reasons and I can't ... he's got a lot on his plate right now," he said.
In Rose's mind, he has served his time.
"I can't complain or can't do anything like that because I'm the one that made the mistake and I can't change that," Rose said. "But in my case I just don't think the penalty fits the crime, if you want to call it a crime."
Even though it seems as if Rose's chances of getting reinstated seem bleak, at best, he did not hesitate to say he still believes that some day it will happen. Though in the same breath it becomes clear he's bitter about the wait.
"My mistake, I chose the wrong vice," Rose said. "I could have chose drugs. I could have chose drinking. I could have chose spousal misbehavior. And then I would have been rehabbed and still managing the Reds. I just chose the wrong vice. It's kind of strange, though, I believe there are 15 stadiums in baseball, and they have casino signs hanging in them. [But] they frown on gambling."
Rose said he was astonished to see in a recent edition of USA Today that his suspension from baseball was ranked as the top sports scandal of the last 25 years. "How about these athletes that kill people?" Rose said. "How can betting on your own team to win be worse than that? What the hell is going on here? Isn't that strange?"
And he knows that odds are he's not the only one who bet on baseball.
"Do you believe from 1919 to 1987 that I'm the only player to bet on baseball?" he asked rhetorically, pausing for effect. "... And to think I'm the only guy? And there's probably people who believe that."
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- For four years Pete Rose did his best to appease Major League Baseball. He said he'd gotten the hint that if he wanted any chance of finally getting reinstated he better stay away from this quaint town on the sport's biggest weekend of the year.
So that's exactly what he did. Rose stopped coming to Cooperstown, stopped creating a sideshow by signing autographs down the street from the Hall of Fame.
"I was a good boy," Rose said.
But four years have passed and what does he have to show for it? He stands no closer to returning to baseball, and in the meantime he has lost out on the thousands of dollars that he would have made in signing autographs.
So guess where Rose was when Hall of Fame weekend officially kicked off here on Friday? He spent three hours in the morning and another two in the afternoon inside a collectible shop down the road from the Hall of Fame, signing for fans willing to pay between $65-to-95. He's going to do the same Saturday, and then on Sunday.
And he's not going to apologize for that.
"Nothing's happened, so I can't ... I can't ... this is a big weekend," Rose, 66, told Newsday before his afternoon session. "This is a big weekend for anyone who is in the autograph business, and I'm in the autograph business."
This is how baseball's all-time hit king makes his living, signing autographs. He does it 15 days a month at a Las Vegas memorabilia store. But you better believe he would much rather be working in the game he loves, the game he was permanently suspended from in 1989 for gambling.
"Next month, August 24, will be the 18th year I've been suspended," he said. "That's a long time to be suspended for betting on your own team to win. It was wrong. I was absolutely wrong, no question about it. I wish it didn't happen, but it did. Fans are willing to put it behind them and move on. Other people just won't ... Jiminy crickets."
While Rose wouldn't identify whose those people are, clearly he was referring to commissioner Bud Selig, who has refused to overturn the suspension. "I met with Bud a couple of times, but that's ... Bud has his own reasons and I can't ... he's got a lot on his plate right now," he said.
In Rose's mind, he has served his time.
"I can't complain or can't do anything like that because I'm the one that made the mistake and I can't change that," Rose said. "But in my case I just don't think the penalty fits the crime, if you want to call it a crime."
Even though it seems as if Rose's chances of getting reinstated seem bleak, at best, he did not hesitate to say he still believes that some day it will happen. Though in the same breath it becomes clear he's bitter about the wait.
"My mistake, I chose the wrong vice," Rose said. "I could have chose drugs. I could have chose drinking. I could have chose spousal misbehavior. And then I would have been rehabbed and still managing the Reds. I just chose the wrong vice. It's kind of strange, though, I believe there are 15 stadiums in baseball, and they have casino signs hanging in them. [But] they frown on gambling."
Rose said he was astonished to see in a recent edition of USA Today that his suspension from baseball was ranked as the top sports scandal of the last 25 years. "How about these athletes that kill people?" Rose said. "How can betting on your own team to win be worse than that? What the hell is going on here? Isn't that strange?"
And he knows that odds are he's not the only one who bet on baseball.
"Do you believe from 1919 to 1987 that I'm the only player to bet on baseball?" he asked rhetorically, pausing for effect. "... And to think I'm the only guy? And there's probably people who believe that."
Anything to make the lying bag o' bones Bud squirm a little, I will at least take some sadistic pleasure in.