My Prison Without Bars: Pete Rose - Hardcover

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Pete Rose is a legendary player and a fan favorite. He divides his time between Florida and Los Angeles.

Rick Hill has been a working actor, writer, and director in Hollywood for 20 years. He has written several screenplays including The Longshot, based on the life of baseball star Jim Eisenreich. As an actor, Rick studied with Lee Strasberg and co-starred with Mike Connors in the ABC-TV series Today's FBI and with Emmy and Academy Award winners such as Mare Winningham and F. Murray Abraham. Rick has also directed more than a dozen episodes of hour-long drama including the TV series Born Free. Rick lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Barbara, and their three children.

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Pete Rose
My Prison Without Bars

PETE ROSE HOLDS MORE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL RECORDS THAN ANY OTHER PLAYER IN HISTORY. He stands alone as baseball's hit king having shattered the previously "unbreakable" record held by Ty Cobb. He is a blue-collar hero with the kind of old-fashioned work ethic that turned great talent into legendary accomplishments.

Pete Rose is also a lifelong gambler and a sufferer of oppositional defiant disorder. For the past 13 years, he has been banned from baseball and barred from his rightful place in the Hall of Fame-- accused of violating MLB's one taboo. Rule 21 states that no one associated with baseball shall ever gamble on the game. The punishment is no less than a permanent barring from baseball and exclusion from the Hall of Fame.

Pete Rose has lived in the shadow of his exile. He has denied betting on the game that he loves. He has been shunned by MLB, investigated by the IRS, and served time for tax charges in the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.

But he's coming back.

Pete Rose has never been forgotten by the fans who loved him throughout his 24-year career. The men he played with have stood by him. In this, his first book since his very public fall from grace, Pete Rose speaks with great candor about all the outstanding questions that have kept him firmly in the public eye. He discloses what life was like behind bars, discusses the turbulent years of his exile, and gives a vivid picture of his early life and baseball career. He also confronts his demons, tackling the ugly truths about his gambling and his behavior.

MY PRISON WITHOUT BARS is Pete Rose's full accounting of his life. No one thinks he's perfect. He has made mistakes-- big ones. And he is finally ready to admit them.

PETE ROSE is a legendary player and a fan favorite. He divides his time between Florida and Los Angeles.

RICK HILL has been a working actor, writer, and director in Hollywood for 20 years. He has written several screenplays including The Longshot, based on the life of baseball star Jim Eisenreich. As an actor, Rick studied with Lee Strasberg and co-starred with Mike Connors in the ABC-TV series Today's FBI and with Emmy and Academy Award winners such as Mare Winningham and F. Murray Abraham. Rick has also directed more than a dozen episodes of hour-long drama including the TV series Born Free. Rick lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Barbara, and their three children.

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1

HINDSIGHT IS 20/2 0

"When they take your freedom--there is nothing scarier in the whole world."

--PETE ROSE

Of the 17 baseball players who have been banned for life, none have ever been reinstated. But since I have seven major league and 12 National League records, you'll understand why I would like to add just one more "first" to my tally before I settle in for the big dirt-nap. Not that I think I deserve better than those other guys--I just love to win. I had only met Commissioner Bud Selig once before, but on November 24, 2002, Mike Schmidt and I stood in his office in Milwaukee waiting for a meeting that I hope will bring me back to baseball. Actually, I wasn't sitting. I was pacing. I'm what you call a "hyperactive" person, which means I can't sit still for any length of time. I was pacing back and forth, thinking about how to talk about something that I had kept secret for 13 years--hell, longer than that. I don't know why the Commissioner agreed to reconsider my case. Perhaps he thought it was time to mix justice with mercy and some good old common sense. Maybe he was struck by the endless chants of "Let Pete in" at the 2002 World Series where I appeared on the Master-Card All Century Team. Maybe he thought that after 13 years, the so-called deterrent value of punishment was firmly in place. I did know what Mr. Selig wanted to hear but didn't know how he would react after he heard it. Finally, my friend and Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt got frustrated by watching me wear out the carpet and offered some words of encouragement: "Look at all these photos, Pete," he said. "Just about every Hall of Famer in baseball is hanging on these walls and Pete Rose has more hits than any of them. Mickey Mantle's dead. Jackie Robinson's dead. Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Satchel Paige, and Babe Ruth--all gone. You're one of the last men standing from the old regime. So just remember: Base-ball needs Charlie Hustle." Most folks know that I'm not a warm-and-fuzzy guy. I don't pick up stray dogs or send thank- you cards, and I don't cry at weddings--unless it's one of my own. But I'll be damned if I wasn't a little bit moved by what Schmidt had to say. So hell, I took his advice. I started looking at the pictures and it took my mind off the business at hand. I looked at a picture of Willie Mays--the greatest player I ever saw. Then I looked at Sandy Koufax--who could throw a baseball through a goddamn carwash without getting it wet. And I looked at Hank Aaron--the man who broke Babe Ruth's home-run record.

I kept pacing until finally I came face-to-face with another familiar face-- Ty Cobb, and you can imagine what that reminded me of.

The year was 1985, a warm September night, and I was one swing away from breaking Ty Cobb's career record of 4,191 hits--a record that stood for damn near 60 years. People have often tried to compare me to Tyrus Raymond Cobb but I just don't see the resemblance. Cobb idolized his strong-willed father and was pretty chilly toward his mother. As a rookie, Cobb was hated and shunned by the veteran players on his team. Cobb loved baseball with a passion and absolutely hated to lose. Cobb was involved in an alleged gambling scandal that drew a suspension from the American League president. Now, honestly, folks, does that really sound like Pete Rose? Aw hell, let's just get back to the night of the record-breaking hit. As y'all know, I've always been a media-friendly guy. But during the weeks leading up to the big night, I got radiation burn from all the cameras that were constantly stuck in my face. They were camped out at my house on Indian Hill. They were camped out at the ballpark, and they pretty much followed me everywhere I went. For 3 straight weeks, I did a press conference, TV, magazine, or newspaper interview every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I did an in-depth interview with Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated and with Lesley Stahl of CBS. But to be honest, none of that stuff bothered me. I was feeling strong, calm, and confident about the whole situation. I had become the most media-experienced athlete of my generation. In fact, when asked where I got my strength to perform under such intense pressure, I just opened my jersey and exposed my T-shirt, which read: "Wheaties, Great out of the Box!" Everyone busted up laughing, which kept the press right where I wanted them.

Top of the first, Browning, our starting pitcher, retires the San Diego Padres in order. Bottom of the first, Milner flies out. Then I step into the box against Eric Show in front of a sold-out crowd of over 47,000 Cincinnati fans, who were screaming and shouting like crazy. I looked back at umpire Lee Wire and he said: "Time to make history, Pete." The first pitch was high, which I took for ball one. I swung easy and fouled off the second pitch and then held off again for ball two. Show's 2-1 pitch was a slider, down and in, which I drove to left-center for a single. Then the fireworks erupted and all hell broke loose. I rounded first and slapped hands with Tommy Helms, my longtime friend and coach. Then the fans just went berserk. Steve Garvey of the Padres stepped in and said: "Thanks for the memories!" First, they took away the baseball and then they took away first base, which I assumed was being sent to the Hall of Fame for posterity. Marge Schott ran onto the field and presented me with the keys to a new red Corvette with a license plate that read "PR 4192." Then I looked over and saw Tony Perez and Dave Concepcion--two of the best teammates in the world. Yes, sir, it was a pretty special night. I was doing just fine throughout the first several minutes of all the hoopla. But after they left me alone, I began to feel strange. I had no glove, no base, no ball, and no bat. It was the only time I was ever on a baseball field and didn't know what to do! Then while hugging Tommy Helms, I started to choke up. Helms gestured for my son, Pete Rose Jr., and while hugging Petey, I just lost it. I remembered all the men who helped me reach that milestone in my career, but during the 9th minute of the standing ovation, I looked up in the sky and saw the face of the only man I ever idolized--my dad, Harry Francis Rose.

In 1947, when I was 6 years old, my dad, or "Big Pete" as he was called, was the fiercest damned competitor the Feldhaus Football League had ever seen. On the night of the big game, I trekked along the banks of the Ohio River to get to the field, but like I said, I don't remember seeing a "melange." I was the team waterboy and assistant equipment manager--jobs I loved because they kept me on the field, close to the action. I hated sitting in the stands with my mother and my two older sisters, Caryl and Jackie, because even back then I had no interest in the idle gossip of women. In fact, the only time I ever went into the bleachers was to "pass the hat" for donations to help pay for the stadium lights and referees. Dad only got paid about 15 or 20 dollars for the entire semipro season. So everybody else had to chip in to help pay for the extras. But after the Great Depression, there was never much in the hat because nobody really had any money. I would usually get to the field 2 hours before kickoff to set up the water buckets and help my uncle, Buddy Bloebaum, chalk the field. Buddy was a real flamboyant man who wore a fur coat and fedora hat. He also had a secret identity, which I will talk about in detail later. Before chalking the field, I'd run routes, catch passes from Uncle Buddy, and imagine myself breaking long runs and delivering bone-jarring tackles just like my dad. But in my mind, I wasn't playing between the railroad and the riverbank. I was playing at Soldier Field in Chicago before a sold-out screaming crowd. Even back then, I had big ideas about my future in sports, ideas fueled by my dad's encouragement.

During this particular season, my dad was playing for...