Rose visits LV to watch his son play for Nashville

It is an hour before Wednesday night's Nashville Sounds-Las Vegas Stars game at Cashman Field and Pete Rose likes what he sees.

"Hey, this is pretty nice up here," Rose says of Stars general manager Don Logan's private booth behind home plate. "It's got a great view and it's nice and cool in here, too."

But what major league baseball's all-time leader in hits (4,256) likes even better on this suffocating 102-degree evening is the name he sees on the starting lineup card.

Batting fourth and playing first base for the Sounds is none other than Pete Rose Jr.

"I'm not here to talk about my situation," Rose says politely. "I'm here to watch my son play."

He hasn't watched Pete Jr. play since spring training when, because of his "situation" -- his 1989 lifetime suspension from major league baseball by Commissioner Bart Giamatti for gambling -- he almost earned the Cincinnati Reds a $250,000 fine.

Rose, at the request of Cincinnati minor league officials, addressed about 130 minor league players after that game.

"I talked to the guys for about 55 minutes," Rose recalled. "Out of those 55 minutes, I probably spent about five minutes talking about hitting and the other 50 talking about the love of the game. I got a standing ovation afterward."

But not from major league baseball officials, who said Rose had broken the rules of his lifetime banishment from major league baseball. This, despite the fact he was addressing minor league, not major league players, at the Reds' minor league complex.

"It's funny," Rose says with a smile. "I applied for reinstatement (to major league baseball) in September and I haven't heard a thing from those people. Yet, before I made the three-hour drive back to my home after that speech, they already had contacted the Reds about it."

The man named the Player of the Decade for the 1970s by The Sporting News is becoming more animated now. He also strays from his vow to not talk about his situation.

Because of his situation, the man who earned the nickname "Charley Hustle" for his gutty, hard-nosed play -- not his gambling habits -- can't be voted into baseball's Hall of Fame. Never mind that folks like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth didn't exactly fit the choir-boy image.

"All I'm looking for is what I deserve," Rose says. "It's not like I go to bed every night praying that I get to go into the Hall of Fame one day. I go to bed each night just praying that I wake up each morning."

Instead, Rose seems to be more concerned these days with how his old team, the Cincinnati Reds, could recently release his 28-year-old son despite the fact he was having a solid year at triple-A Indianapolis (.277, 3 HRs, 13 RBIs) after earning a September call-up to the big club last season.

"I really can't convince myself that there are 700 better baseball players in the U.S. than my son," Rose says. "He had the best year of anybody in that organization last year (at double-A Chattanooga where he hit .308 with 25 HRs and 96 RBIs). He was hitting .277 this year on a team that had only three players batting .250 or better.

"He was on a tear and then went 0-for-4 one game. I mean, he hit .277 after a 1-for-19 start. But after that 0-for-4 game, he didn't start again. Something like that comes from the top."

Pete Jr. signed with the Sounds after gaining his release from the Reds, who wanted to demote him to Chattanooga.

"What does he have to prove in double-A?" the elder Rose asks. "He's 28 years old. He's already proven what he can do down there."

Could it be Cincinnati's way to get back at dad?

"It's not a slap in the face to me," Rose says. "If they're that stupid as an organization to do something like that. ...

"I mean, they brought him up at the end of last year. As a former major league manager, you always reward someone who does as well as Pete did last year in the minors. Yet of the eight players they called up, he was the only one they didn't invite to spring training this year."

Why?

"(Reds manager) Jack McKeon, for some reason, didn't like him," Rose says. "But they liked him when he brought 20,000 extra people to his first game last September. I think he paid his way for them."

Indeed, the Reds, who averaged just 11,000 fans per game last year, drew 31,920 for Pete Rose Jr.'s major league debut against Kansas City last Sept. 1. It was the team's fifth-largest crowd of the season.

Rose admits that his son has had to deal with much more pressure than the average big league prospect because his name is Pete Rose Jr.

"No question about it," Rose says. "But that pressure doesn't come from me. Pete knows that, as my son, there are only two things that I expect from him. That is, one, be on time, and two, play your ass off when you're out there. And he does that."

He believes that his son's move from the Reds to the Pittsburgh Pirates also could turn out to be a plus in the end.

"Now he's with an organization that didn't need to give him a chance but did," Rose says.

When will Rose pop up at a game to watch his son play again? One thing is for sure: If Pete Jr. gets called up in September by Pittsburgh, dad will do everything he can to make the final three games of the season.

"Their final three games (Sept. 25-27) are in Cincinnati," Rose says. "If Pete is there, you can bet I'll be there."

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