Baseball: $100,000 Worth of Singles

In the age of the impotent bat and the omnipotent pitch, the National League’s Cincinnati Reds are a curious anachronism. Their mound staff is a monument to mediocrity, which is why they are a hopeless 15½ games behind the St. Louis Cardinals. But Red batsmen are rattling the fences from Crosley Field to Candlestick Park. The team batting average is .270, tops in either league by 18 points. Four of their hitters are among the league’s top ten; a fifth, Third Baseman Tony Perez, is second only to San Francisco’s Willie McCovey in RBls with 63.

Best of the bunch is Pete Rose, 26, a brassy, bristle-topped Irishman, whose flip tongue and frenetic brand of baseball have injected fresh breath into an increasingly stale game. His zest once branded him a showoff. “In the minors, they called me ‘Hot Dog’ and ‘Hollywood,’ ” he snorts, “but they don’t holler at me in the majors.” They certainly don’t. Spraying hits from either side of the plate, Rightfielder Rose has batted better than .300 in each of the past three seasons. This year, with a .327 average, he is fighting Pittsburgh’s Matty Alou (.330) for National League batting honors. Equally notable is his penchant for playing every second as if his spikes were hot out of the forge, with a headlong slide here, a diving catch there, and everywhere a run, run, run. “If I had eight Pete Roses,” says Cincinnati Manager Dave Bristol, “we’d run all over the league.” Adds Teammate Tommy Helms: “It makes you tired just being around him.”

Much of Rose’s atavistic attitude comes indirectly from the old St. Louis Gas House Gang. “I once saw a Reds-Cards game,” he says, “where Enos Slaughter drew a walk and ran hard to first base. I decided right then that that was what I was going to do as long as I played ball.” A more immediate propellant was Pete Sr., a semipro football player with the old Cincinnati Bengals, who taught his son to switch-hit.

But if Pete was the apple of his father’s sporting eye, nobody else was interested in a 5 ft. 7 in., 145-lb. infielder. Nobody, except Uncle Buddy Bloebaum, who just happened to be a Cincinnati scout. At 18, Nephew got his contract and a trip to the Class D Geneva, N.Y,, Redlegs. He hit only .277, was ignored in the minor-league draft. Then he started to grow, stretching 4 in. and putting on 50 lbs., all of it muscle. In 1961, he swatted .331 at Tampa, and .330 at Macon, Ga., the following year. Still unimpressed, Cincinnati invited Pete to their spring-training camp in 1963 almost as an afterthought. He insinuated himself into an exhibition game, started slamming doubles all over Florida, and won the enmity of the Reds’ regulars by taking a starting berth away from veteran Second Baseman Don Blasingame.

Hara-Kiri Habits. There has been no enmity since. Rose hit .273 that season, covered second like a seasoned pro, was named Rookie of the Year. He later handled third base and left field, lashed 899 hits in five seasons to establish himself as one of the most dangerous hitters in the game, hiked his salary to $57,000 after a spring holdout. That is not nearly enough. “I’m going to be the first player who is not a 20-game winner or a home-run hitter to make $100,000 a year,” he insists.

If he stays in one piece. His hara-kiri habits sidelined him for two weeks last season when he banged up his shoulder diving for a sinking line drive. This year he ripped his hand open on the Crosley Field fence on the second day of the season. Next day, bandage and all, he collected two hits to launch a 22-game hitting streak.

Not one to learn a lesson easily, Rose took a dive after a hard-hit ball in the July 5 game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The National League’s No. 1 vote getter in All-Star balloting, Rose sat out the classic with a broken thumb, spent 23 days on the inactive roster. Now that he has recovered, the Cincinnati management can only pray and do what it can to keep its zealous star whole—such as emphatically denying him permission to play in an amateur football league this fall.