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Current Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona can recall the first time he ever met Pete Rose.
Of course, it was on the field in the playoffs in 1981.
“I bunted on Mike Schmidt, and Pete was at first base, laughing. Then I bunted on him and got a hit. He thought it was the greatest thing ever,” Francona recalled.
In 1984, Rose was playing the outfield for the Montreal Expos. Francona was on the team with him.
“The thing I’ll always remember is in ’84, he was struggling with his legs. He was playing left field. They called me into the office. He and (manager) Bill Virdon were there. At the time, I think I was first or second in the league in hitting. They asked me if I could go to the outfield. I said, of course. I lasted a game. I blew my knee out. Pete came to the hospital the next morning before he came to the ballpark for a day game. Those are things that people don’t hear about Pete.”
Randy Marsh, who spent 27 years as a Major League Umpire, was a rookie umpire in 1981. He was the home plate umpire in Philadelphia one night. It was a close game. Marsh called Rose out on strikes.
“Rose argued. With an expletive,” Marsh said. “He said, ‘but there wasn’t a ‘you’ in front of it.’ I said, ‘Too late, you’re already gone.’”
Marsh grew up in Northern Kentucky, which is basically a Cincinnati suburb. He was a fan of Rose’s.
Marsh still has a clip from the newspaper the next day. The headline was, “Obscure Umpire Ejects Baseball Legend”.
Hall of Fame shortstop Barry Larkin also grew up in a Cincinnati suburb, attending Moeller High School.
“We all tried to imitate his headfirst slide,” said Larkin who was born during Rose’s second season with the Reds. “Pete Rose definitely deserves it. We played hard. We expected to win. We tried to emulate each and every characteristic that he embodied. I grew up idolizing Pete Rose as well as David Concepcion and George Foster.”
Rose called Larkin in Denver one early morning to tell him he would be starting the next day at shortstop at 7:40. There was bad weather everywhere. Larkin didn’t arrive at the Cincinnati airport until 7:00, and they drove him to the ballpark at 7:15.
Rose was standing at the clubhouse door, and he said to me, ”Larkin, your first day in the big leagues, and you’re late.
“He talked to me for a couple of minutes. My bags were somewhere else. They weren’t with us. He allowed me to use his bat and his cleats. I think I used [Eric] Davis’ batting gloves. My first at bat for the Reds was with Pete Rose’s bat and Pete Rose’s cleats. Now, after the game, I was going to take that bat and those cleats home with me, but he met me at the door and told me to give them back.”
One more voice on the night was from Chicago White Sox manager Will Venable. His father, Max, played for Rose along with Francona, Larkin, and Davis on the 1987 team.
Will was just four years old at the time, but he heard stories from his dad.
“I know it’s complex,” Venable said. “Hearing from my dad. I know that my dad is disappointed that this didn’t happen when he was alive. He contributed a lot to the field, obviously. It would have been cool for him to be out on the field and have a celebration for him. I heard all the positive stories about Pete and how focused he was. How incredible he was, his attention to detail, his toughness. I’m happy for him and his legacy that the ban has been lifted.”
George Foster joined the Reds in 1971 in a trade for Frank Duffy.
“Pete Rose was a team player. He moved from second base to the outfield,” Foster recalled. “He moved from the outfield to third base to give the team whatever they needed to win.”
It was Rose’s willingness to move to third base that opened the door for Foster to start his career in the Reds’ outfield, hitting 52 home runs in 1977.
It was in early May 1975 that Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson asked Rose to make room for Foster.
Eric Davis was called up to the Reds in 1984. Vern Rapp was the manager when Davis was called up. Rose managed and played the last 41 games of the season.
Pete spoke through his coaches,” Davis said. “He spoke through Tony (Perez). He spoke through Lee May and some of the other coaches. He didn’t want anyone to think he played favorites, and he never did. But he really saved me. They were trying to change me, really. They wanted me to change my style and make me hit the ball on the ground because we had turf. I remember vividly. I was leading off, and I popped a bunt up. He called me to the end of the dugout. He said, ‘Listen, son, when I know you can hit it in the red seats (the upper deck that ringed Riverfront Stadium), every time you bunt it’s a $100 fine.’ At that time, I was only making $32,000, and I never bunted again.”
“It was all about winning,” Larkin said. “If the best players were young, the best players made the team out of spring training. In 1986, we broke camp with five rookies. That was unheard of, but that was the start of our working to win the World Series in 1990.”
“I remember the conversations that we had that were a little more personal,” Larkin said. “It was about the responsibilities of being from Cincinnati and representing the team.”
Foster said, ”The thing that he did for me was he moved from left field to third base to give me an opportunity to play every day. From then on, the Big Red Machine started to roll. We won like 41 out of 50 games after me and Ken Griffey Sr. got into the lineup. If Peter didn’t want to go to third base, that would have never happened.”
Foster talked about the sixth game of the 1975 World Series when Carlton Fisk hit the home run to win it.
“He talked to Sparky on the bus, who was convinced we were going to lose the World Series until Rose spoke up.
“Sparky thought Rose had too much coffee, but Rose told him it was the greatest game he ever played in and that we would win tomorrow (game 7). He was a guy who got 200 hits every season, and he knew the game, and he tried to talk Sparky down. We won that seventh game.”
Related: Pete Rose to be Honored By Reds
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