Pete Rose

January 20, 2014
One of the most controversial and defiant baseball personalities of all time receives a piercing scrutiny by Kennedy, assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated, who tracks the firebrand from his Cincinnati childhood to his heralded rookie season of 1963 with the hometown Reds. Rose, according to Kennedy, emerges as a walking contradiction, a hard worker on the field with a singular goal of excellence, a consistent .300 hitter with dramatic headlong slides and acrobatic catches, but also a bad-boy with the press who occasionally got into trouble after hours. As a part of the “Big Red Machine,” Rose put up impressive statistics and holds the record of MLB all-time hits leader—alongside three World Series rings, two Gold Gloves, and three batting titles, during a playing career that ran from 1963 to 1986. However, Kennedy doesn’t shy away from the banished ex-player’s gambling addiction and the infamous Dowd report that eventually got him thrown out of the game, in the middle of the 1989 season when he was serving as the Cincinnati manager. Included are Rose’s poor career choices, his roving eye for the ladies despite marital obligations, and the beleaguered, unsuccessful quest to reach the baseball Hall of Fame. Piecing together the raging firestorm of disappointment, fraud, prison time, and hustling in Rose’s checkered life, Kennedy’s ambitious account is an anecdote-rich read.

Starred review from February 1, 2014
A reflection on the meaning of legendary baseball player Pete Rose. Rose is Major League Baseball's all-time hits leader, as well as the leader in games played and at-bats. He holds nearly 20 records and was one of the hardest working and most beloved players during his playing days. Yet, due to the fact that he gambled on baseball while he was a manager with his former team, the Cincinnati Reds, he is officially banned from baseball and is not enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. "Even now," writes Sports Illustrated assistant managing editor Kennedy (56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports, 2011, etc.), "25 years into his exile, he remains a figure who stirs uncommon passion, righteousness, indignation." Were this book just a biography of "Charlie Hustle," it would be a fine one. But more importantly, Kennedy explores not only Rose's life and career and his ignominious fall from glory, but also the complexities and conundrums surrounding his ineligibility and his character. Rose's detractors and supporters alike will find evidence here to both confirm and challenge their biases. Kennedy is a graceful writer who interweaves traditional biography with myriad explorations of the puzzle that is Rose: his affinity for gambling and his waywardness with money, his up-and-down relationships with women and his children from his marriages, and his sometimes-tawdry post-baseball life. Kennedy tends toward discursive divergences that usually build a larger picture, though occasionally he is like an interesting man at a party who tells wonderful stories but interrupts himself to tell an even better tale. Nonetheless, most of the time, he weaves magic in these pages. Rose may not deserve as nuanced a biographer as Kennedy, but baseball fans certainly do. A remarkable book about a fascinating, vexing figure.

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February 15, 2014

How do you solve a problem like Pete Rose? Baseball's still-reigning hit king, "Charlie Hustle," never ceases to be a divisive figure. Kennedy (56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports) takes a fresh look at him. While the book contains a fair amount of biographical material, it's more of a consideration of Rose's place in baseball history 25 years after his ban from Major League Baseball (MLB) and from Hall of Fame consideration because he bet on baseball games. The narrative shifts between Rose's past--with anecdotes from family, friends, and former teammates--to his present life working the autograph circuit and filming a reality show with his young fiancee. The big question that has dogged him in the last quarter century--whether or not he has a right to a plaque in Cooperstown--hangs over the story and is newly scrutinized in light of recent steroid scandals. VERDICT While Rose may be handled a little too lightly here in some readers' opinions, this will find an audience among baseball fans.--BR

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