Playboy Interview: Pete Rose

Pete Rose was a line drive--hitting, headfirst-sliding Cincinnati Reds rookie in 1963, when the team's veterans hung the derisive nickname Charlie Hustle on his cocky crewcut head. He has been pissing off people ever since. Every fan knows Rose's claim to fame: 4256 base hits, 67 more than Ty Cobb had. But even nonfans know his claim to shame: the charge that he bet on baseball games while managing the Reds. That's what keeps Rose out of the Hall of Fame and keeps him hustling to defend his name even as he sells it to anybody willing to ante up and get in line: Get your red-hot autographed bats, balls, cards, caps, jerseys and posters!

Rose's enemies include baseball commissioner Bud Selig, former commissioner Fay Vincent and baseball inquisitors John Dowd (the lawyer whose report on Rose's gambling helped get the Hit King exiled in 1989) and Jim Gray, whose World Series Rose-grilling made headlines ten years later. But if his shit list is long, it's a Post-it note compared with the roster of Rose fans who flock to his autograph signings or add their names to the cyberscroll at sportcut.com, the website that set an Internet record for hits for a sports site on the day Rose's Hall of Fame petition appeared there. "One thing about Pete," says an old National League rival who once duked it out with him, "he's overcome his shyness."

The son of a bank clerk who played semi-pro football, Rose won the 1963 National League Rookie of the Year award and went on to win back-to-back batting titles in 1968 and 1969. In 1973 he hit .338 and was the league's most valuable player. Next came World Series titles for Cincinnati's Big Red Machine in 1975 (when Rose was Series MVP) and 1976. Through it all, baseball's player of the decade for the Seventies tooted his horn like Miles Davis. You don't have to look up Rose's numbers--just ask him and he'll spew: 16-time All-Star who set an NL record with a 44-game hitting streak in 1978, signed the next year with Philadelphia for $800,000, the highest salary in the game, and hit .331. He retired in 1986 with a .303 career average, 2165 runs scored (fourth-highest in baseball history), 746 doubles (second) and 11 major league batting records, including hits, games and, tellingly, most games in which his team won.

There are no official records for bets placed, expletives uttered or Baseball Annies nailed.

Vulgar? Fifty-nine-year-old Rose favors gold chains and sweatpants with mesh pockets, the better to show off the fist-sized wad of bills he carries around. Before a radio appearance with Howard Stern (a man he calls a "fucking genius"), he sat in Stern's waiting room and mused about "all the tits that have been in here." You can call Rose crass or an ass and you'll get little argument from the lords of baseball, who cringe at publicity stunts like his annual autograph-hustling event at Cooperstown on Hall of Fame weekend. But, vulgar or not, you're talking about one of the toughest, winningest SOBs in sports, an overgrown Little Leaguer who parlayed sharp eyes, steel-cable wrists and the sheer cussedness of ten mean drunks into a record that may stand forever. Last winter, when stats guru Bill James crunched the numbers and estimated all active players' chances to catch Rose, every major leaguer wound up with the same chance--zero--except the Yankees' Derek Jeter, who James figures has a one percent shot at surpassing the Hit King.

Number 14 was a showboat, but he was also baseball's number one gamer. When he bowled over Indians catcher Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star game, effectively ending Fosse's career and leaving him with arm and shoulder pain that has dogged him for 30 years, there was one good reason. It won the game. After signing with the underachieving Phillies in 1979, he helped lead them to the World Series. Never was Rose's nose for the spotlight more evident than in the last game of that 1980 Series, when Phils catcher Bob Boone let a pop foul frog-hop out of his mitt, only to watch first baseman Rose snatch it and squeeze it, killing the Royals.

Such men can't retire. They need action, competition. From 1984 to 1989 Rose managed the Reds, and he gambled. On football, he says. On baseball, lawyer Dowd and commissioner Bart Giamatti said. In 1989 Rose signed his own death warrant, a lifetime suspension that states, "Nothing in this agreement shall be deemed either an admission or a denial by Peter Edward Rose of the allegation that he bet on any major league baseball game." He remained eligible for the Hall of Fame, but in 1991--the year before he would be eligible for induction--the Hall's directors passed a new rule: Suspended players were no longer allowed. Rose felt double-crossed, and he charges baseball with "brainwashing" the public about him. "Admit I bet on baseball?" he says. "Forget it."

The fans are on his side. They voted Rose onto baseball's All-Century Team, giving him the last outfield spot over Roberto Clemente and giving Selig a PR headache. That led to Jim Gray's televised grilling of Rose, which backfired on Gray and made Rose more popular than ever. Even Bill Clinton called on baseball to let Pete back in, saying, "I'd like to see it worked out. God knows he's paid a price." Soon Rose, class act that he is, lamented that he and the president had both suffered horribly in recent years--along with O.J. Simpson. Selig was unmoved, announcing in February that "there is not a scintilla of give" in baseball's hardline position.

Who is Pete Rose? As his lawyers huddled with baseball's lawyers to hash out his fate, we sent writer Mark Ribowsky to meet the Hit King in New York and Florida. Ribowsky's report follows:

"Rose opened the door to his hotel room, clad in a natty gray sports jacket and tan slacks, a little piece of toilet paper stuck to a shaving cut on his chin. His agent, Warren Greene, a man who looks both cuddly and beleaguered, tended to the cut before we piled into a limousine for the short drive to Michael Jordan's restaurant in Grand Central Station, where Rose met with investors of sportcut.com.

"In the limo he wondered about the point spread in that day's Monday Night Football game. Later, after two hours of mingling with businessmen, his mind was on the models who had been hired to stand around in polo shirts and tight pants. 'I liked the one with the big Jewish ass,' he said.

"What makes him tick? Pride, anger, sex, self-righteousness, money, money and money. We began with a topic I was sure he'd enjoy."

[Q] Playboy: The long, loud ovation you got when you were introduced as a member of the All-Century Team--was that as good as sex?

[A] Rose: Playing baseball is as good as sex. The sixth game of the 1975 World Series against Boston was like sex. It don't get better than that. But this was close--getting a bigger ovation than Hank Aaron in Atlanta is like outdoing God in heaven. When Hank told me, "Hey, you got a bigger hand than me," I said, "Hank, you throw out the first ball here once a month. They're tired of seeing you." Imagine what it would have been like if that game was in Cincinnati. They would have clapped for 15 minutes.

[Q] Playboy: Did Commissioner Bud Selig say anything to you that night?

[A] Rose: I thanked him for letting me be part of the celebration, and he said, "It's a great pleasure to have you with us." He told my son Tyler that he was always a fan of Pete Rose. So there's nothing personal there. I don't dislike Bud Selig. I didn't dislike Bart Giamatti. I got along with Giamatti, and I think that if Bart was still around I'd be reinstated, because he was a fair man.

[Q] Playboy: Are you still mad at NBC's Jim Gray for his interview that night?

[A] Rose: Jim Gray is a liar. He told Mike Schmidt to tell me that if I did that interview, it would get me into the Hall of Fame. So Mike tells me, "He says he has inside information from the commissioner's office that will help you."

[Q] Playboy: But all Gray did was press you to admit you had bet on baseball.

[A] Rose: It's not like I haven't been asked those questions hundreds of times, but he was too persistent about it. It's been ten years, Jim, let it go. Let a guy enjoy the All-Century Team. But he attacked, and to make it worse, the next day he told the press I knew he was going to talk about gambling. That's a lie, and when he said I wasn't mad at him when it was over, that's another fucking lie, and he knows it. After the interview I looked at him and said, "You fucking treat a friend like that? How in the fuck can you say I'm a friend?" and walked away. He was stunned by that. Then Craig Sager, the other on-field reporter for NBC, comes over and he has tears in his eyes. He says, "Pete, I've got to apologize for my profession. That was the worst thing I've ever heard, and I couldn't work the rest of the night if I didn't get this off my chest."

[Q] Playboy: Sager denies saying any such thing.

[A] Rose: Maybe he's scared for his job. That makes me think, Craig, why can't you be a man about it? I mean, nobody's going to fire Craig Sager because he knew Jim Gray was a disgrace.

[Q] Playboy: Any advice for Gray?

[A] Rose: Forget the goddamn attitude and just do the job.

[Q] Playboy: Suppose Selig continues your suspension but offers to make you eligible for the Hall of Fame. Would you agree to that?

[A] Rose: Baseball would be committing suicide to do that. Going into the Hall of Fame is not going to let me make a living. I'm not knocking the Hall of Fame--my kids would think that's the greatest thing in the world, because after ten years they'd see their daddy for what he was, a great ballplayer. All they've heard their whole lives is what a louse I am. But is having a plaque on a wall in Cooperstown going to make me a couple of million dollars a year? I'm a baseball person, a baseball teacher. I want to get back on the field. I'm the best ambassador baseball has, and I can't step on a big-league field.

[Q] Playboy: But you clear more than $1 million a year from memorabilia shows and the like. How can you moan about money?

[A] Rose: I'm not moaning. I can't moan and whine and be bitter and say baseball fucked me and created all my problems, because I'm the one who called the bookmakers and made the bets. I wrote the checks to the bookmakers. But the fact that I make good now is irrelevant. I never see my family. I'm always on an airplane going somewhere.

[Q] Playboy: Still hustling. You make frequent appearances at casinos. Given that you were suspended for gambling, isn't that inappropriate?

[A] Rose: Are you telling me to starve? Why should I stay away from casinos? Bart Giamatti told me to go and "reconfigure" my life, and I've done that. I don't hang around with them sleazeballs no more. Yes, I still go to the track. I enjoy it and it's legal. I go to casinos, but I don't gamble in them. Hell, even if I did play blackjack or roulette, which I don't, I wasn't suspended for playing blackjack, was I? I can see where people would be disturbed if I walked into a sports book in a Las Vegas casino and started making bets. But do I do that? Never. Last October I went to Atlantic City to be in a show with all the living players who have 3000 hits, and people said, "How can you do a show in Atlantic City?" What the hell was I supposed to do, stiff Hank Aaron and Willie Mays and all the guys in the 3000-hit club who were there? How can you have a fucking 3000-hit show if the Hit King ain't there?

Why are people alarmed if I go to Atlantic City? Because it looks bad? Tell me this: Did it look bad that a couple of the 3000-hit guys were drunk and playing blackjack the night before that show? Nobody ever sees me loaded. I don't drink or smoke. And if I look bad going to casinos, why do major league ballparks have casino signs all over the place? But I'll make you a deal: If baseball doesn't want me in that environment, give me a fucking job in baseball. Until then, I have a family to support.

[Q] Playboy: Pure baseball question: Which team would win a Series between the 1975--1976 Red Machine and the 1998--1999 Yankees?

[A] Rose: How many guys on the Yankees are going to the Hall of Fame? Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter? Who else? Nobody. How many are in the Hall of Fame from the Big Red Machine? Morgan, Perez, Bench. I belong. And if guys like Pee Wee Reese start making it at shortstop, what about Dave Concepcion? If you gave our team the Yankees' pitching staff, we'd have won 135 games a year. But then, give the Yankees our starting lineup and they'd win 135. The real difference is in the competition. The game's good now, but it's weaker. The pitching is terrible. Most teams have a good stopper because you only have to develop one guy. But where are the middle relievers? Look closely and you'll see that it's the middle innings when most of the runs are scored. How many teams have a good guy leading up to the stopper? Not even the Yankees. It's because pitchers aren't pitchers anymore; they're $35 million investments.

These days, if a pitcher gets a kink in his elbow, they're not going to let him throw a fucking pitch until they find out what it is. So nobody throws hard anymore. We used to go into Houston and see Larry Dierker, Don Wilson, Jim Ray and Dick Farrell, and all of them threw 92 or 93 miles an hour. We'd go to Los Angeles and face Koufax, Drysdale, Bill Singer, Don Sutton. In San Francisco it was Billy Pierce, Gaylord Perry, Jack Sanford, Bob Bolin. All blowers. Now there's maybe two hard throwers on a staff. The rest throw screwballs or palm-balls or forkballs. I could take a bat up there today and rock them guys. I could have rocked the old-timers, too. They say Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson pitched both ends of doubleheaders. Well, I used to excel in the seventh or eighth inning, when the pitcher was tired. That's why you can't compare me to Ty Cobb. Would Cobb have had a .367 lifetime batting average if he came up in 1963 and played till 1986? That guy never faced a relief pitcher.

[Q] Playboy: Do you get all the credit you deserve?

[A] Rose: I played more games than anybody and got more hits. Yet all I hear is that Rickey Henderson is the greatest leadoff hitter ever. Why? Because he hits home runs? I got over 1300 RBI. Check Rickey Henderson's RBI, see how many he's got. [Editor's note: The answer is 1020 through 1999.]

How could I not be in the top 50 of ESPN's Greatest Athletes of the Century? Mark Spitz? That guy worked two weeks! I worked 24 years. They say I was just a singles hitter, but I'm sixth in history for total bases.

[Q] Playboy: Quick--describe the Eric Show pitch you hit to set the record.

[A] Rose: Fastball, down and in.

[Q] Playboy: Who was the best pitcher you faced?

[A] Rose: Juan Marichal. Bob Gibson was the toughest competitor. Koufax was the hardest thrower. Think of all the Hall of Famers I faced. I got 77 hits off Phil Niekro and 30 against his brother Joe-- I got one forty-second of all my hits against one family! I had a five-for-five against Warren Spahn, a five-for-five off Phil Niekro and a five-for-five off Gay-lord Perry. That's 15-for-15 off three Hall of Famers.

[Q] Playboy: Did Perry load it up on you?

[A] Rose: Sure. Four out of my five hits in that game were off spitballs. There's a guy who cheated for 20 years, and he's in the Hall. Other guys loaded it up, too. Sutton cut the ball, and I'll tell you, when I watch Greg Maddux' ball move, that's not normal. Kevin Brown's ball movement isn't normal. It looks like they're doing something to the ball, but I'm not saying they're cheaters. I never say someone's cheating unless I know it. Their balls have so much movement that it's abnormal. On the other hand, take Pedro Martinez. This guy is a freak. He has six pitches he throws for strikes from about six different angles. Tony Gwynn, the best hitter in baseball today, is overmatched against Martinez. I think I'd be overmatched against Martinez. I really don't think I could hit him, and I've never said that about a pitcher.

[Q] Playboy: What's the biggest misconception about Pete Rose?

[A] Rose: That I was suspended for betting on baseball. Under baseball's Rule 21 you can be banned for three things: bribing an umpire, betting on baseball [specifically, on one's own team; betting on baseball in general carries a one-year suspension] and associating with undesirables. In the agreement I signed, it says there's no finding that Pete Rose bet on baseball. What is so hard to understand about that? Ask any fifth grader what "no finding" means. It means I didn't do it. When Bart Giamatti and Peter Ueberroth, who was the outgoing commissioner, summoned me to New York that spring, I admitted to them that I had bet $2000 on the San Francisco 49ers against the Cincinnati Bengals in the last Super Bowl. They said, "We could care less about that." Then they told me to lie. I'm getting ready to leave and I say, "Gentlemen, I left spring training to come here, and when a manager leaves spring training for a day, people want to know where the fuck he went. What do I tell 'em?" They say, "Tell the press the new commissioner wanted to talk to you about things in the best interest of baseball." Now to me, that means I went to New York to help the new commissioner get off on the right foot. From the beginning, they were lying about the case.

[Q] Playboy: Your old teammate Johnny Bench has said he doubts your side of the story. He said, "If Pete didn't do it, why doesn't he say he didn't do it?"

[A] Rose: Because I couldn't! I was under a gag order--I'd agreed not to talk about it. It hurt when Bench said that, because I took Johnny under my wing when he came up to the Reds. But it became a jealousy situation. Johnny Bench is jealous that I was more popular than he was. He's jealous that they named a street outside Cinergy Field Pete Rose Way, not Johnny Bench Way. Johnny has a big ego, and he's kind of pissed off that people like me. The next time Johnny Bench does a radio or TV show, someone should ask him, "Did you ever make an illegal bet on a football game?" See what he says.

[Q] Playboy: Is gambling a danger to society and to baseball?

[A] Rose: I don't think it should be a crime. I've got a 15-year-old son, Tyler, and a ten-year-old daughter, Cara Chea, and if they were going to do one of the following things--be an alcoholic, be a drug offender, beat their wife or their husband, or gamble--I hope they would gamble. Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker are in the Hall of Fame and they were known gamblers. Leo Durocher associated with known gamblers and he's in the Hall. Guys in other sports have been suspended for a year for gambling--look at Paul Hornung and Alex Karras in football. If Bart Giamatti were smart, he would have fined me on the day I was called to New York. People would have accepted that. I would have accepted it, and the whole thing would have ended.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think Giamatti was biased against you?

[A] Rose: Look at who Bart Giamatti was. When he was president of Yale, he was kind of a powermonger. He wrote papers saying that absolute power ain't so bad. So here's a guy with that mentality taking over as commissioner of baseball, and who was the number one guy in the game? You're looking at him. But baseball didn't need me. I wasn't a player anymore, I was a manager. Do you think I'd have been suspended if I was a player? No fucking way. Look at Albert Belle. He wrote $40,000 in money orders to bookmakers during the season, and what did baseball do? Nothing.

With me, it was easy for baseball to say, Let's take the household name and straighten his ass up. Funny how they never say that to a guy doing drugs. If I had been busted for drugs instead of gambling, I'd still be managing the Reds and baseball would be paying for my rehab.

[Q] Playboy: You call baseball's Dowd report a biased "prosecutor's brief," but Dowd didn't invent the 29 checks that wound up with bookmakers, or the fingerprints on betting slips.

[A] Rose: I'm not going to tell you I didn't bet. I did--I bet on football. Just look when those checks were mailed. They went out in the winter. I was making my payoffs for football games. The betting slips they got are football betting slips.

[Q] Playboy: One that was dated April 9, 1987 features baseball games. One of the games is listed as Cin at Mont--Reds at Expos--with a W after Montreal.

[A] Rose: Was there a circle? The team you bet on would have a circle around it.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't that what that W means, that you'd be betting on Cincinnati?

[A] Rose: No. How can that be? Who's the favorite? Who's the underdog? That's not a real betting slip. They also said I bet the same amount on every game, $2000. But you can't bet two dimes on baseball games because every game, from what I'm told, is different. Depending on who's pitching, sometimes you have to put up more than two grand to win two grand. That's how the odds work in baseball.

[Q] Playboy: The fingerprints on the betting slips?

[A] Rose: The piece of paper they're telling you about, with those games they say I bet on--they say it has one thumbprint of mine. One print. But would a betting slip that I did a lot of writing on have one fucking thumbprint on it? Anyway, my handwriting experts say all those betting slips are so faded and discolored, they wouldn't stand up in court. I'm not saying they were forged. I'll leave that to my experts. I am saying I didn't write them. Who did? Someone who has no knowledge of baseball. Just look at the date of that Reds-Expos game and you'll see it was Montreal at Cincinnati, not Cincinnati at Montreal. You think I'd bet on a game and I don't know who the fucking home team is?

[Q] Playboy: Dowd believed he caught you in a lie over a $34,000 check written in March 1987. He said you claimed it was to cover losses on the 1987 Super Bowl and NCAA basketball championships, but the NCAA tournament began the same day as the date on the check.

[A] Rose: What's his point? That I was making payoffs on baseball? It was March-- was I betting on spring training games? Is John Dowd so dumb he can't figure out that I was betting on college basketball all winter? Does he think I only bet the NCAA tournament? He didn't catch me in no lie.

[Q] Playboy: Then why did you sign the agreement with Giamatti and not fight on in court?

[A] Rose: My lawyers and I were preparing to go to federal court when baseball called us. They wanted to suspend me, and they wanted me to wait 22 years before I could apply for reinstatement. We said, "You're crazy." So the next morning they came back and said 11 years. Again we said no way. That afternoon they said "OK, make it one year." I could still have gone to court, but I would have also had to spend another half a million dollars in legal fees. I was happy to get the fucking thing over with, because for six fucking months every time I left my house there was a camera in my face. I'm surprised I didn't get radiation burn. So we said OK, a year. I signed the agreement with no finding that I bet on baseball--the same finding I would have gotten in court. As far as its being a lifetime suspension, maybe I misread that. Maybe I misconstrued it. I never saw it as permanent. I looked at it as a chance to come back in one year. A lot of people go to prison for life, but then they apply for parole and get out, right?

[Q] Playboy: Are you a compulsive gambler?

[A] Rose: Ten years ago I asked myself, Could I have a problem? I went to Gamblers Anonymous. I went to see a doctor. Then I went on The Phil Donahue Show and said I had a problem, which is what that doctor told me. I didn't believe it, and it was a big mistake. From then on, if I was anywhere near a racetrack or a casino someone would see me and go, "Uh-oh, what's he doing here?"

But I knew I wasn't a compulsive gambler. I told that doctor, "I've never taken my gas or phone or electric bill money or my house payment to the track." You may think I'm a fucking genius in baseball, but I'm like everybody else who bets on sports. Nobody wins. You bet for enjoyment, for pleasure, for entertainment, but not to make money.

You know why I go to the track? Because I used to go with the only person I've ever idolized, my dad. He would take me to the track on Saturday mornings when I was a kid. My dad wasn't a compulsive gambler, he was a recreational gambler. So am I.

[Q] Playboy: You had trouble with the commissioner in 1988--a 30-day suspension and a $10,000 fine--for bumping umpire Dave Pallone during a rhubarb. Did you know at the time that Pallone was gay?

[A] Rose: Yeah, I knew. We all knew. Something like that gets around, just like you know if somebody in baseball has HIV. But I didn't care that he was gay. I cared that he made a horseshit call at first base that cost me a goddamn ball game, and when I was arguing with him he scratched me with his fingernail and cut my face. That's when I pushed him. I should have killed the son of a bitch. Dave Pallone--that was another fight baseball didn't want. After that, he got into trouble. [Accused in a sex scandal, Pallone was cleared but forced to leave the game.] Giamatti gave him six figures to retire because he didn't want to fire a gay umpire and take on the gay activists.

[Q] Playboy: Let's say Selig reinstates you. Do you call Reds general manager Jim Bowden and ask for your old managing job back?

[A] Rose: I'm not gonna call nobody. I'll wait and see. But there are a couple teams right where I live that need somebody like me in the worst way, because they have bad attitudes. I'm talking about the Dodgers and the Angels. Those teams have too much talent to be as bad as they've been, and I'm a hell of an attitude changer.

[Q] Playboy: You had a good quote about the Cubs' losing ways.

[A] Rose: God told the Cubs, "Don't do anything until I get back." They're a good example of the attitude I'm talking about. The Cubs have great fans, but I think the fans are partly responsible for that team's demise. Cubs fans go to see the Cubs play. Reds fans go to see the Reds win. Cubs fans have been through losing so long that they go to the game to have fun, sit in the bleachers, take their shirts off and look at the ivy. When you don't get pissed off about losing, you get in a rut, and the Cubs have been in that rut for a long time. I loved it when Don Baylor took over as manager and said it's great to be part of such a great tradition. What tradition?

[Q] Playboy: Could you step in and manage a team tomorrow?

[A] Rose: I've already picked out my coaching staff: Doug Flynn, Tony Perez, Dave Parker and Wally Horsman [who operates the Bucky Dent Baseball School].

[Q] Playboy: Why didn't die Reds give your son Pete Jr. a longer look?

[A] Rose: That is a mystery to me and to Petey. He was called up from the minors for two weeks at the end of die 1997 season. He started one game, on Labor Day, which was heavily promoted. The Reds had sold 12,000 season tickets that year. They had 34,000 for that game. Petey got a base hit and made two good plays at third base. Now, wouldn't you think he made enough money for the Reds that day, and showed enough promise, to be invited to spring training the next year? But he wasn't. My son is 6'2", 240 pounds, solid as a rock, a gamer, a guy everybody loves, a guy who hits .300 every year.

A writer from Dayton told me that after Pete made an error in another game, Jack McKeon, the manager, said, "That's all I need to see of this Rose kid." Petey thinks it wasn't because of any error but because he got to the ballpark earlier than McKeon did, and McKeon thought he was making him look bad, being in the clubhouse before the manager.

[Q] Playboy: You have problems with McKeon? He was the National League manager of the year.

[A] Rose: The problem McKeon may have with me is that Jim Bowden said he'd love to hire me as the manager if I was eligible. Maybe McKeon sees me as a threat. I hope he's not so shallow that he held that against my son.

[Q] Playboy: Do you still talk to Pete Jr.'s mom, your first wife, Karolyn?

[A] Rose: Not since I had to get a court order to take Petey to the 1980 World Series. We were going through a divorce, which Karolyn didn't want, and that was her way of getting back at me. She thought that I was sleeping around.

[Q] Playboy: You mean you weren't?

[Q] Rose: When I was 22, 23, 24 years old, I made mistakes with my family life. But to do everything people said I did, I would have needed three dicks. I was never the type to go out looking for pussy in every town. If I liked somebody in the town I was in, I would take her to the next town so I didn't have to go out looking. It's better to know who you're sleeping with. You won't catch a disease. One time a girl sued me for paternity. Not the one in Tampa--that was legitimate. This one was in Franklin, Ohio, and I didn't even fuck this girl! How can you knock up a girl you don't even fuck?

[Q] Playboy: You once noted nastily that Karolyn had gone from a size two to a size 20--

[A] Rose: All I was saying is that someone who wants to stay married to me should care about her appearance. That's a matter of self-respect and respect for me. Look at me. I could still play. I'm not sexist, and what I like most in a woman isn't physical. It's the way she carries herself. That's how you tell if she's confident, bright, intelligent. I think Hillary Clinton is sexy. She gets better and better. She'd make a hell of a president. Same thing goes for Dole's wife. I like [Texas Senator] Kay Bailey Hutchison. I like Barbara Walters.

[Q] Playboy: Barbara Walters is sexy?

[A] Rose: I find all kinds of women sexy. I'm not queer, so why wouldn't I?

[Q] Playboy: There's a story that you went to a strip joint in Mexico, jumped onstage and had sex with one of die strippers.

[A] Rose: My first year with the Reds, we went to Mexico City during spring training. It wasn't a strip club. I've never been in a strip club. It was a bar. I was 22. I was there with some of my teammates, and in the next room was the manager, Fred Hutchinson, a real tough son of a bitch. He saw me and said, "What the fuck are you doing here, kid?" I was scared to death of the man, but I said, "What the fuck are you doing here?" And from that night on, he liked my style. That's why he started me as a rookie. But public sex? Shit, no.

[Q] Playboy: The Reds' veterans weren't too crazy about you.

[A] Rose: They had Don Blasingame at second, a guy they really liked. All of a sudden Hutchinson puts this young, brash rookie in the lineup. I'd already gotten a reputation--in spring training we played the Yankees, and Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford called me Charlie Hustle. The name got in all the papers and it stuck. So these guys didn't want to associate with me. The only guys that would were the black players, guys like Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson. I was actually called into the Reds' front office and told to stop hanging around with the blacks. This came from Mr. William O. DeWitt Sr., the owner, and Mr. Phil Seghi, the assistant general manager. I thought that was stupid. You win and lose as a team; what does a guy's skin color have to do with it?

[Q] Playboy: Yet you're still friendly with former Reds owner Marge Schott, who referred to her "million-dollar niggers" after she bought the Reds in 1985.

[A] Rose: I don't think Marge Schott is a racist. I think Marge don't like anybody. She thinks everyone's against her. Is Marge a Nazi because someone was at her house and found a swastika in a dresser drawer? Because the person who found it is Jewish, he said, "What's up with this?" Marge said a veteran had given it to her as a souvenir, but the press made it sound like there were swastikas all over her damn house.

[Q] Playboy: What about her saying, "Hitler was OK at the beginning. He just went too far"?

[A] Rose: That's just Marge. Hitler was too extreme, we all know that, but Marge is harmless.

[Q] Playboy: OK, Marge Schott's not a racist. How about John Rocker, who, during his infamous Sports Illustrated tirade against foreigners, single mothers and "queers with AIDS," called one of his Braves teammates a "fat monkey"?

[A] Rose: I don't know John Rocker. But from watching his teammates talk about him, and from guys who knew him in the minor leagues, I don't think he's a racist. Nobody ever said he was a racist. I mean, are you a racist part-time? Here is a young kid who made some stupid statements he probably regrets, but he didn't expect the writer to put them in the article. I don't know if what the writer did to him is fair or not, but he may have done a lot of harm. I don't know if Rocker can weather what happened. I hope he can. But he didn't pitch all that good after taking on the people in New York in the playoffs. You really have to be a special type of person, mentally, to go through that and keep your cool. I know, because the same thing happened to me in 1973 when the Reds played the Mets in the playoffs. I took the entire brunt of New York in that series, especially after I had that fight with Bud Harrelson, which started after I slid hard into him to break up a double play and he called me a cocksucker. I told him, "I don't go that way." They wanted to kill me in New York. But I hit a home run in the 12th inning to win the next game, and I think I was the only guy alive who could have done that, to play the whole city of New York and beat them. That could really fuck up his head.

[Q] Playboy: Who's going to win it all this season?

[A] Rose: The Mets. Most improved of anyone. They were good last year, and getting Mike Hampton, a real good left-handed pitcher, will put them over the top. Even though they signed Todd Zeile to play first base, I think Mike Piazza is going to play there eventually, because it'll save wear and tear on his body. He was all beaten up last year. Obviously, you have to consider the Yankees, because they've really earned that respect. And now that they signed a new contract with Madison Square Garden, the money from that will allow them to fill in any needs. The teams that played good last year will be good again. The Braves will be good. The Indians will be good. But the Red Sox aren't any better than they were at the end of last season, and they had a lot of guys that had career years. And even though the Astros lost Hampton to the Mets, it ain't gonna be a lock for the Reds. Don't forget they lost Juan Guzman. If anything, the Cardinals will be better because they picked up some needed pitching. They brought Andy Benes back. I just want to see Mark McGwire get a shot at a World Series. He and Sammy Sosa are guys we need to see in October. The game needs to see that.

[Q] Playboy: How would you rate yourself as a parent? Your first wife has said you found it extremely hard to show emotion.

[A] Rose: But my kids knew I loved them. Maybe I missed Petey's Little League games when I was on the road, but I can't think of any ballplayer who was as close to his son. When the team was at home, Petey went to the ballpark every fucking night. He was there a lot more than Ken Griffey Jr. was. Looking back, I think there's only one person I ever cheated: my daughter Fawn. And I wouldn't have cheated her if she'd been a boy. I couldn't take her to the ballpark. A girl couldn't go into the clubhouse, and how could I leave her sitting alone in the stands? What if somebody kidnapped her? But I didn't miss my little girl's graduation from college. I flew in on a private plane from St. Louis for it, and now Fawn is going to work for me in my restaurant in Los Angeles. I'm a better dad now--hugging and kissing my kids, telling them I love them. I never used to do that. A man has to be tough to survive, but he needs a gentle streak in him, too, or he'll end up miserable.

[Q] Playboy: Ever cry?

[A] Rose: Twice. Once in 1970, when my father died. The other time was when I got my record-setting hit and was standing on first base, drinking in that nine-minute ovation, thinking about what my dad would have thought.

[Q] Playboy: You've wept only twice in your 59 years?

[A] Rose: Actually, it was twice for a long time. Now I can get teary watching my daughter act. [Cara Chea, ten, has acted under the name Chea Courtney on Melrose Place and the daytime soap Passions.] God, her concentration and work ethic are just like mine were. Or I'll cry watching Tyler play basketball--he's 5'7" and can palm the ball. I cry at movies. I was so pissed off when the girl died in Patch Adams! I'm mellowing in my old age.

[Q] Playboy: You once introduced your current wife to reporters by saying, "You would probably call her 'Wow,' but I call her Carol." Aside from the obvious, what attracted you to Carol?

[A] Rose: Her personality. She's built like an athlete, too, and she's a great mother.

[Q] Playboy: People might be surprised that your marriage has lasted 15 years if they remember Roger Kahn's 1991 Playboy article, in which Carol said that she was "lonely" and had "ambivalent sexual feelings" toward you. When Kahn said she could always leave you, Carol said, "Pete would kill me."

[A] Rose: Bullshit. I have a great marriage. Roger Kahn never talked to my wife. Next time you see Roger Kahn, ask him why he stiffed me for $25,000. He wrote a book with me called Pete Rose: My Story, a bullshit title because it was more his story than mine. The publisher paid the advance for the book but sent too much by mistake, and took the difference from what I got. So we went to Roger to get what he owed me, and he had pissed it all away. [Editor's note: Through his attorney, Kahn declined to discuss his relationship to Rose.]

Roger Kahn is yesterday's news. He's lived his whole life on one thing, The Boys of Summer, and he's got nothing else. Me and another writer, Peter Golenbock, were the only two guys at his son's wake.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of sportswriters, what do you think of women reporters in the locker room?

[A] Rose: I don't care if you wear a skirt or pants if you're a good journalist. It never bothered me if a woman was there to do a job. What bothered me was if she didn't care about writing sports but just wanted to be the first woman in there. Don't come in looking for trouble, trying to make guys feel uncomfortable. I think that's what happened with Samantha Stevenson, who sued baseball to be let into our locker room when I was with the Phillies. That girl had a mission. She even wrote an article about the size of basketball players' cocks. Is that all she had to do, stand around and look at cocks all day?

[Q] Playboy: Stevenson had a few choice words about you after she interviewed you for Playboy in 1979. She said it was you who seemed fixated on cocks, asking her, "How does it feel to have all those cocks staring you in the face? Doesn't it make you embarrassed? Do you like it?"

[A] Rose: Samantha Stevenson's credibility went out the window because of what she did to Julius Erving. She trapped him, didn't she? She had his baby [now tennis pro Alexandra Stevenson]. Does that speak well of her?

[Q] Playboy: Your defender Bill Clinton was almost brought down by Monica Lewinsky. Was he wrong to lie about what they did in the White House?

[A] Rose: It's not acceptable to lie, but the press went too far. It wasn't anybody's business. There are very few people without skeletons in their closets. The only difference between me and President Clinton on one hand, and everybody else on the other, is that our skeletons are all out. So unless you're a saint about sex, or gambling, you'd better keep your fucking mouth shut.

[Q] Playboy: You haven't been a saint, but plenty of baseball fans adore you. Has it been hell to be out of the game?

[A] Rose: No. I love baseball, but when I took the spikes off, the game was over for me. There was always more to my life. I'll tell you a story: It was 1967 and I was going to Vietnam, me and Joe DiMaggio. The only reason I agreed to die trip was to meet DiMaggio. We went to visit American military advisors in the Mekong Delta. So there we were, me and Joe DiMaggio, in the middle of the jungle, with the fucking war going on around us. I looked up and saw tracer bullets being fired out of helicopters, rat-a-tat-tat. Then the copters landed and they began loading bags, big black bags. They were body bags, with dead Marines inside. The bags were piled up in the street; I counted 21 of them. You see something like that and the importance of baseball disappears in a hurry.

[Q] Playboy: Is that why you've sold so many of your awards, trophies and mementoes? Don't they mean anything to you?

[A] Rose: Go take a look around my restaurant in Florida, the Pete Rose Ballpark Café. What do you see? World Series rings, silver bats--it's all there. I love taking sportswriters there and saying, "Want to look at all the stuff I sold to pay my gambling debts?" I keep things that have special meaning: my first Gold Glove, my first batting championship trophy. The rest, I could care less. When I set the hits record, the story went around that I wore nine different uniforms that night and sold them all. You've heard that, haven't you?

[Q] Playboy: We heard it and believed it.

[A] Rose: I wore three uniforms. One went to the Hall of Fame, one went to Marge Schott and the other I kept. The real story is never as bad as the writers want it to be.

Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker are in the Hall of Fame and they were known gamblers. Leo Durocher associated with known gamblers and he's in the Hall.