RIP Pete Rose

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Frazod

To be fair, Rose being kept on when his skills had diminished wasn't on him so much as the teams that employed him. A good chunk of professional athletes are egomaniac pricks, and an egomaniac prick isn't going to quit when he's on the cusp of breaking a massively important record like that. I'm not sure why you'd expect him to. Remember how useless that one who sucks the penis McGwire was in his last season? I didn't blame him for wanting to play. Of course he wants to play. I blamed LaRussa for not benching him.

As I've said in the past when this topic came up, I'm not a Rose fan, or a Reds fan, and I think the guy was a total ass. But he was a total ass who holds the all-time hits record, and that just is what it is. He didn't cheat to get those hits.

Funny you mention McGwire - he left a 2 year, $30 million extension unsigned in his desk over the course of that miserable final year and elected to walk away instead of sign it and play diminished.

Rose should've done the same.

And while I understand why he did it, I don't have to applaud him for it or act like he was something more than he was. He was a blatant and unapologetic stat-chaser. He holds the all-time hits record because he wrote his own name into the lineup card to get it.

It isn't exactly cheating but it's not something I feel is worth celebrating either.