Speaker 1: Bill Cunningham, The Great America. Welcome to Pete Rose Day
Speaker 1: in the city of Cincinnati. It is May fourteenth, and
Speaker 1: we're going to celebrate the life and times of Pete
Speaker 1: Rose tonight at the ballpark. And of course he was
Speaker 1: admitted back into baseball taking off the ineligible list a
Speaker 1: day or two ago by the Commissioner. My view, that
Speaker 1: is pathetic. It's cool to have a guy die about
Speaker 1: six months ago, and now the memories light the corners
Speaker 1: of my mind, and let's face it, I want to
Speaker 1: get the perspective of the great Hall of Famer Marty Brenneman.
Speaker 1: Of course, tonight the first pitch is seven fourteen PM tonight,
Speaker 1: White Sox, a little Dollo on the Mount, and Marty's
Speaker 1: going to be the MC starting I think about six
Speaker 1: thirty and Marty Brownman and welcome again to the Bill
Speaker 1: Cunningham Show. Can you tell the American people, the forty
Speaker 1: thousand fans accumulating and congregating to go to the Great
Speaker 1: American Ballpark? What time to get there? I would think
Speaker 1: a little bit early. And then secondly, what's going to
Speaker 1: happen in between six thirty and seven fourteen.
Speaker 2: Well, they're going to the gates are open at five
Speaker 2: point fifteen Bill, and that's a good move.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a.
Speaker 2: Way ahead of when the actual Rose memory ceremonies will
Speaker 2: begin around six thirty. And I think in a early
Speaker 2: class move, the club is giving to everybody who attends tonight.
Speaker 2: Oftentimes it's the first twenty thousand or the first fifteen thousand,
Speaker 2: or whatever the case might be, the club is going
Speaker 2: to give out a facsimile jersey like the one Pete
Speaker 2: wore during the seventy five seventy six Big Red Machine
Speaker 2: World Championship years. At six thirty or thereabouts, I will
Speaker 2: oversee Q and A with Barry Larkin, with Ken Griffy Senior,
Speaker 2: with Eric Davis, and with George Foster, and basically the
Speaker 2: questions are going to deal with Pete Rose the player,
Speaker 2: Pete Rose the teammate, and Pete Rose the manager. And
Speaker 2: those four guys really present a great cross section because
Speaker 2: you know, Larkin, Larkin grew up watching Rose in the
Speaker 2: Big Red Machine teams play, and then eventually Pete became
Speaker 2: Berry's first manager in the Big leagues, and then Griffy
Speaker 2: was a teammate of his and later a coach, and
Speaker 2: then Foster, of course, is one of the main stays
Speaker 2: of those great clubs in the middle seventies and playing
Speaker 2: with Pete and Eric Davis was both a teammate and
Speaker 2: a guy who Pete managed when Pete was player manager
Speaker 2: of the ball club. So that's a good that's a
Speaker 2: good mix. Then they're going to have I know, the
Speaker 2: Western Hills I don't know, it's lee club or a
Speaker 2: singing group from Western Hills High School where Pete went.
Speaker 2: We'll sing the national anthem. Members of the family will
Speaker 2: throw out the first stitch. There will be a fourteen second,
Speaker 2: you know, a fourteen second memory to commemorate or to
Speaker 2: think about your own personal thought of what Pete meant
Speaker 2: to the city and what he meant to this game.
Speaker 2: And then of course seven fourteen again the fourteen comes
Speaker 2: up his number to kick off the ballgame.
Speaker 1: When was the last time you saw Pete rose.
Speaker 2: Bill. I'm tried to remember when the last time it
Speaker 2: was that I saw him. He passed away in September.
Speaker 2: I saw him, No, I saw him on New Year's
Speaker 2: Eve of twenty and twenty four, because he and I
Speaker 2: were together for the second straight year at the Hard
Speaker 2: Rock Casino to make an appearance on New Year's Eve
Speaker 2: that might have been. That might have been. I talked
Speaker 2: to him a lot on the phone, but I rarely
Speaker 2: ever got a chance to see him other than when
Speaker 2: we were thrown together to deal with a function.
Speaker 1: Any day with Pete Rose was a good day, correct,
Speaker 1: whether it was on the phone in person, bubbling, incredible personality,
Speaker 1: fun to be with. What was your reaction when Rob
Speaker 1: Manford finally said, I guess about six seven months after
Speaker 1: Pete's death, Okay, we'll take him off the ineligible list
Speaker 1: along with the other fifteen. What was your initial reaction.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not a big Rob Manford fan. I think
Speaker 2: there's an incredible level of hypocrisy involving this whole thing.
Speaker 2: And I've made the comment over years and years and
Speaker 2: years that you can hardly turn around at the Hall
Speaker 2: of Fame in Cooperstown without seeing something that Pete did
Speaker 2: on the field as a player that enhanced the interest
Speaker 2: of the game of baseball. So they didn't hesitate using
Speaker 2: Rows as a player to uplift the image of the
Speaker 2: game and the eyes of the fans and many thousands
Speaker 2: that went through the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown every
Speaker 2: year and every day, but yet he was not a
Speaker 2: lot good enough to be in. And I believe me
Speaker 2: when I tell you, going back to the day that
Speaker 2: he was suspended from the game, I agreed one hundred
Speaker 2: percent with it. I went full circle over on the
Speaker 2: on the ensuing years. But I agreed with it because
Speaker 2: that's the only rule in baseball that's on the wall
Speaker 2: of every clubhouse in Major League Baseball, all thirty all
Speaker 2: thirty franchises. And he broke that rule, and he should
Speaker 2: have been suspended, but not to the extent that he
Speaker 2: ended up being suspended. And the hypocrisy of it now
Speaker 2: is that within a matter of months. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is the most transparent thing I've ever seen. There's no
Speaker 2: element of cloak and dagger here trying to hide something,
Speaker 2: because as you said, it was a matter of months
Speaker 2: he passes, and now they announced that he's off the
Speaker 2: ineligible list. I'm I'm just not a big fan. Granted,
Speaker 2: he should have been suspended. Secondly, and quite honestly, I
Speaker 2: do believe this, And I told the Bill the day
Speaker 2: he was called the Voice Palm Beach in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: nine to meet with Peter you Barrot and Bart your
Speaker 2: Moody Commissioner nationally President, and they laid out all the
Speaker 2: evidence they had, and the evidence was irrefutable. You couldn't
Speaker 2: there was And I think that had he laid his
Speaker 2: he fell on the mercy of the court and said,
Speaker 2: everything you got is true, I am guilty as hell.
Speaker 2: He would have been suspended for a period of time
Speaker 2: and we wouldn't even be talking about the possibility of
Speaker 2: him going into Hall of Fame today because he would
Speaker 2: have been in it years ago. But I think Pete
Speaker 2: made him mad because in face of overwhelming evidence that
Speaker 2: he did do it and his continued insistence that he didn't,
Speaker 2: they finally said somewhat vindictively. And I know they would
Speaker 2: never admit this because there's no not an ounce of
Speaker 2: vindictiveness in Rob Manfred's body. Okay, you're going to continually
Speaker 2: lie to us. We're going to show you why you shouldn't.
Speaker 2: And I really believe that's the way that whole thing.
Speaker 2: I told him, I said, had you admitted it the
Speaker 2: first day they confronted you with, you know, it's unfortunate
Speaker 2: the way things played out.
Speaker 1: I had on Keith O'Brien and wrote the book Charlie hustle,
Speaker 1: the Golden Age of baseball. Friend of mine, Yeah, good.
Speaker 1: About a week ago and I said to him, what
Speaker 1: was the lowest point of Pete Rose's life? And he
Speaker 1: related to me a conversation he had with Pete in
Speaker 1: which in October of nineteen ninety the last glory run
Speaker 1: of the Reds hopefully they'll be one soon, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't look like it, in which the Reds were just
Speaker 1: taking apart the Oakland A's and Pete was in a
Speaker 1: prison and a little bit of an area where other
Speaker 1: federal inmates were in Marion, and Pete was saying, well,
Speaker 1: I would have done this, I would have done that.
Speaker 1: Look at this, look at that. He said. Near the end,
Speaker 1: he went back to his to sell and he laid
Speaker 1: in bed trying to get the wrap up of the
Speaker 1: game Benziger's catch on the transistor radio and he couldn't
Speaker 1: quite catch it inside the federal prison, and he said,
Speaker 1: Pete Rose looked at the ceiling in October as the
Speaker 1: Reds clinched in Oakland. You had a magnificent call of
Speaker 1: that occurring. And he said Pete's mind was just collapsing
Speaker 1: around the idea that he saw Jethrow he saw Lark,
Speaker 1: and he saw Benziger, he saw it Rio. By the way,
Speaker 1: Jose Rio termed sixty years old yesterday talk about time
Speaker 1: Fly and Pete said, that was the lowest point of
Speaker 1: my life. Can you imagine if you go from September
Speaker 1: the eleventh, nineteen eighty five to about four years later
Speaker 1: August ninth, or maybe October of nineteen ninety think of
Speaker 1: the road that Pete Rose traveled from forty one ninety
Speaker 1: two to federal prison staring at the ceiling in the dark,
Speaker 1: trying to get the call of that game.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable, it really is it, Without the question, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: And by the way, Keith O'Brien's book's the best book
Speaker 2: that's ever been written about Pete.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for those who were the best down and you
Speaker 1: mentioned what happened in West Palm Beach with you Ba
Speaker 1: Off and I think Fay Vincent was in the room
Speaker 1: and others, and Pete's character was such he could not
Speaker 1: admit to agent that there weren't there. At least two
Speaker 1: other occasions were Joe Morgan while he's doing the ESPN game,
Speaker 1: you know, with John Miller, et cetera. Joe Morgan and
Speaker 1: others had Seilea getting close to saying, okay, do this,
Speaker 1: do that, We'll let you back in, and Pete couldn't
Speaker 1: take the next step.
Speaker 2: Not exactly. There were at least two occasions where Joe
Speaker 2: had set up a meeting between Bud Ceilely and Pete
Speaker 2: Rose that was just a meeting that no one else
Speaker 2: would have been privy to. It would have been Bud
Speaker 2: sitting across the table from Pete. I don't know whether
Speaker 2: Joe would have been involved in it, probably not knowing
Speaker 2: Joe as well as I did, he wanted no part
Speaker 2: of that. He was Bud Seelely's inside guy. Every time
Speaker 2: Sea League had something that was sensitive at any level
Speaker 2: relative to the game, the first person he would confide
Speaker 2: in was Joe Morgan. Joe had incredible power that people
Speaker 2: never even knew about. And he was also the best
Speaker 2: friend that any human being could ever possibly have. And
Speaker 2: I told Pete a million times everybody should be privileged
Speaker 2: to have a friend like you had in Joe Morgan.
Speaker 2: And every time Joe got this meeting almost certain to
Speaker 2: take place, Pete did or said something that killed it all.
Speaker 2: And you know, Pete, my beautiful wife, who is a
Speaker 2: very bright girl as a saying, nobody will do more
Speaker 2: damage to you than you'll do to yourself. And Pete
Speaker 2: was probably the foster boy for that, because if you
Speaker 2: stuck a microphone in his face and you talk to
Speaker 2: him live long enough, he's going to say something that
Speaker 2: will hurt him. And those occasions that Joe had set
Speaker 2: up meetings with Bud Seely, on both occasions Pete did
Speaker 2: something that angered the commissioner and he called him off.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw last night. I'm watching ESPN.
Speaker 1: I think Tim Kirchin is this fabulous cason almost the
Speaker 1: baseball and he's been on that so called Veterans Committee before,
Speaker 1: and of course people I just said, somebody stop me
Speaker 1: in the hallway and say when's Pete getting in the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. And I said, well, I told this
Speaker 1: fine sales executive of ours. We'll see about that, because
Speaker 1: Kirchin said the following He said, I've been on that
Speaker 1: Veterans Committee and it meets, by the way, sometime in
Speaker 1: the middle of twenty twenty seven to announce the results
Speaker 1: in twenty in December of twenty twenty seven, which is
Speaker 1: what two and a half years away, and he said,
Speaker 1: there's sixteen of us. He said, and they're all Hall
Speaker 1: of famers or individuals like me or General Manager Tony
Speaker 1: Perez is on the Veterans Committee. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he still lives. He was, And Tim said, look, I'm
Speaker 1: inclined to vote yes, but I know that the sentiment
Speaker 1: is against Pete and it takes seventy five percent of
Speaker 1: the vote, twelve of sixteen. I'm inclined to vote yes.
Speaker 1: And then he related a conversation he'd briefly had with
Speaker 1: Frank Robinson. Statue ten years here, fabulous Hall of famer
Speaker 1: and Frank Robinson I said to Tim, this is years
Speaker 1: ago before Frank passed away, that you know, Pete Rose
Speaker 1: should never be in the Hall of Fame. And to me,
Speaker 1: I thought, Frank Robinson veda Pinson, Pete Rose, you know,
Speaker 1: right there together because coming up in sixty three, sixty four,
Speaker 1: sixty five. But for those who say, well this means
Speaker 1: Pete's going to be in the Hall of Fame, they
Speaker 1: meet every three years, and what is your sense, I
Speaker 1: guess as a Hall of Fame or you could be
Speaker 1: on the Veterans Committee. At some point they asked eminent
Speaker 1: individuals of the game. I know what your answer would
Speaker 1: be would be yes. But for those who say, okay,
Speaker 1: it's a short step. We will be announced tonight that
Speaker 1: Pete Rose is in the Hall of no Explain the process,
Speaker 1: the difficulties Pete Rose would have in front of that committee.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've felt and Jim knows a whole
Speaker 2: lot more about it than I do, but I felt
Speaker 2: that it is being presented to the Veterans Committee might
Speaker 2: well stand a better chance ants of him being inducted
Speaker 2: now then it would have been back in the day
Speaker 2: because of the anger that a lot of the people
Speaker 2: that were influential in Cooper's town expressed over the fact that,
Speaker 2: you know, it took him all that time to admit
Speaker 2: that he bet on baseball. But you know, maybe it's
Speaker 2: not going to be the walk along the Primrose Lane
Speaker 2: that we all thought it was going to be. If
Speaker 2: these people still feel and you know the guys that
Speaker 2: when I went in in two thousand and it's hard
Speaker 2: to believe it's twenty five years ago, but you know,
Speaker 2: they were all up in arms because they'd gotten win
Speaker 2: that I was going to say something about Pete and
Speaker 2: betch came to me. Johnny came to me the day
Speaker 2: before the induction ceremony said they don't shoot the messenger.
Speaker 2: I said, okay. He said, Bob Feller and Ralph Kinner
Speaker 2: have both said that if you mentioned Pete, they're going
Speaker 2: to get up the walk off the stage. And I said, Johnny,
Speaker 2: go back and tell them how to give a damn
Speaker 2: what they did. If they wanted to be stripped naked
Speaker 2: in defiance of what I said, than the hell with them.
Speaker 2: And the next day I made a comment about Pete
Speaker 2: very assertively that he should be in the Hall of Fame,
Speaker 2: and moved on. They were concerned over the fact that
Speaker 2: this the year before, when Mike Schmidt went in in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, that he went on for five minutes
Speaker 2: about how Pete should be in the Hall of Fame,
Speaker 2: and that angered the dickens out of them, and so
Speaker 2: but I did what I was going to do, and
Speaker 2: nobody got up and walked off the stage. But those
Speaker 2: were the two guys that were that carried the torch
Speaker 2: of defiance against Pete ever being in. Propeller and Ralph.
Speaker 2: Obviously both of them are gone now, and maybe they
Speaker 2: are people like Robbie who was also gone, But maybe
Speaker 2: there are more that we don't know about that are
Speaker 2: just as opposed to Pete being in the Hall of
Speaker 2: Fame today as they were back then.
Speaker 1: I don't know about a minute remaining, Marty Brenneman, what
Speaker 1: is the reason? What is the sense? Forty thousand people
Speaker 1: tonight and they could have sold another twenty thousand tickets.
Speaker 1: Pete Rose is dead. We had the ceremony at the
Speaker 1: Great American Ballpark in September October when he died. Well,
Speaker 1: what is the hold that Pete Rose has on Cincinnati?
Speaker 2: Well, I think Bill, and I've said it all the
Speaker 2: years that I've had the privilege of living in this
Speaker 2: town and staying here after countless numbers of opportunities to
Speaker 2: go to other places in Major League Baseball, and ply
Speaker 2: my trade, this is the most provincial city on earth,
Speaker 2: especially if you come from the outside. And if you
Speaker 2: come from the outside like al Michaels did before me
Speaker 2: and like I did, and other people and other walks
Speaker 2: of life, they reserve judgment on you. They don't jump
Speaker 2: on your bandwagon, but they don't get off of it quickly.
Speaker 2: They wait and see how you can induct yourself, and
Speaker 2: once they decide that you are one of them. It's like,
Speaker 2: if you and I were brothers, I can call you anything.
Speaker 2: I want to call you the most vile, but the
Speaker 2: guy who's a friend of ours standing there, he better
Speaker 2: not do it. And so this is kind of off
Speaker 2: the beaten path. But you know, Pete was born and
Speaker 2: raised here, and Pete people prided themselves when this guy
Speaker 2: was when he had proven himself to be an outstanding,
Speaker 2: elite Major League Baseball player, and he continued to knock
Speaker 2: the doors down on records and he ultimately became the
Speaker 2: all time hit king. People loved that, and people loved
Speaker 2: the fact that he went to West Hills High School
Speaker 2: and he was born on that side of town, and
Speaker 2: so there was nothing that he could do that would
Speaker 2: diminish their love and affection for him. All through the
Speaker 2: gambling thing and anything else that had come into play
Speaker 2: that was a negative factor in peace life. People would
Speaker 2: accept the fact and acknowledge the fact, but at the
Speaker 2: same time, they would always quick to say, it doesn't
Speaker 2: make any difference. He's one of us, and we love
Speaker 2: Pete Rose, and I think that basically is what it's
Speaker 2: all about here, and they'll continue to love his memory
Speaker 2: as much as they love the person. He was just
Speaker 2: a special individual who had a lot of warts, but
Speaker 2: those warts were accepted by anybody who crossed paths with
Speaker 2: him for the most part.
Speaker 1: Oh tonight, Tim, Marty, thank you so much. We've discussed this.
Speaker 1: I've only been on the radio forty three years. You've
Speaker 1: been on a little bit longer than that. And it's
Speaker 1: a constant theme of Pete Rose. It doesn't change. And
Speaker 1: I don't think because of the formatics of getting into
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame is going to change for the
Speaker 1: next several years. Maybe three years from now, maybe six,
Speaker 1: maybe nine, maybe twelve, I don't know. But yeah, it's sad,
Speaker 1: and I'm angry at Baseball for what they did to
Speaker 1: Pete as far as not letting them in. It's pathetic.
Speaker 1: It's cruel to do this right after he dies. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't sit well. But Marty, thank you. And I
Speaker 1: fear we're going to do this again at some point.
Speaker 1: It seems like they probably we will. Bill all right, Marty,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Okay, Pal, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: So Now let's continue news coming up. And you couldn't
Speaker 1: make it up. But Shakespeare could not write the twist
Speaker 1: and turns of the life and times of Peter Edward Rose,
Speaker 1: the highs of highs and the lowest of low's. And
Speaker 1: now he's dead. And we cannot change what major League
Speaker 1: Baseball did to Pete by being so cruel. What's changed
Speaker 1: the last six or seven months. Nothing, but after he's dead,
Speaker 1: they want to kick him one more time. Let's continue
Speaker 1: with more. Bill Cunningham News Radio seven hundred w ELD