The Hit King

He made his reputation sliding headfirst, kicking up dirt and hustling his way arou

base paths. The best living ball­player not in Cooperstown now spends his days signing auto­graphs in Vegas ©

"It's going to pick up scon, watch," Pete Rose says, drumming his hands on a folding table. It's half past noon on Groundhog Day, and baseball's most prolific player not in the Hall of Fame is manning his post inside Antiquities, a memorabilia shop across from Victoria's Secret at the Forum Shops in Caesars Palace. Just about every day except Wednesdays, from noon to five p.m. Rose is on duty.

Though his multiyear, seven-figure deal calls for him to sign autographs only 10 days a month, Rose worked 24 days in the previ­ous month and plans to work 21 in February. Each day he punches the clock, ready to give the people what they pay for—an audience with the Hit King. The atmosphere is more late-night talk show than card show.

"Did you see the Pro Bowl this weekend?" Rose asks. "Are you kid­ding me? I mean, they weren't even trying. How could they do that to people? People paid good money for tickets to watch that game and you give them that? Let me tell you about all-star games."

Rose begins with one of the great­est hits of his illustrious career, a story he's told more than 4,256 times. He tells it each time with the same enthusiasm.

"People still talk about me run­ning over Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star Game." In the game, which took place at Riverfront Stadium, Rose's home ballpark in Cincinnati, Rose bowled over American League catcher Fosse at home plate to score the winning run in the 12th inning of what was essentially an exhibi­tion game. The night before, Rose had invited Fosse over to his house for dinner. Fosse has claimed he was never the same player after the inci­dent, which has served over time to cement Rose—with his work ethic and determination—in baseball lore as the game's Charlie Hustle.

"Fosse played the next game. I

missed the next three games after

that collision. They want to say he was

never the same? I think that's bullshit,"

he says as a young couple approaches

the table with baseball and photo in

hand. (continued on page 134)

HIT KING

(continued from page 68)

"Where you folks from?" Rose asks.

"Pittsburgh," the man replies.

"Listen to this," Rose says. "True story. The other day a woman walks in with huge boobs." Rose holds his hands out past his chest to approximate the size. "And she's wearing a little T-shirt. I say, 'Where you from?' She says, 'Tittsburgh.'" Rose howls and slaps the table with his hand. "I said, 'Where is that, in Tennsylvania?'"

After he meticulously signs the ball and photo and poses for a photo with the cou­ple, the woman says, "I love it when you sign your balls 'I'm sorry I bet on baseball.'"

"That's a true statement, ma'am," Rose says, smiling.

"Was that Bart Giamatti that suspended you?" the husband asks.

"Yes. I had a great relationship with him. People thought I was mad at him, but I loved Bart. Do you know his son? Have you ever seen Cinderella Man} Or what's that movie about the wine? Sidewaysl That's his son, the actor Paul Giamatti. I would love to meet him someday and tell him how I feel about his dad. Listen, take care. Have a good stay, okay?"

Doodling on the white paper in front of him, Rose draws an X in the center. "See here? That's Cincinnati. To the left is India­napolis. To the right you've got Pennsylvania. Down here you've got Kentucky. Over here you've got West Virginia. We used to have fans come from miles around to watch us play. I don't think we ever had a rainout when I was playing for the Reds. You had some people driving hours to get to the ball­park. We didn't want to disappoint them."

Now they come from all over the coun­try to see Rose. The business model is the brainchild of Rose's business partners, Bob Friedland and Joie Casey. Rather than have Rose travel the country and appear on week­ends at memorabilia shows, they set him up in Las Vegas, where the average tourist's stay is three days. "Pete's job is being Pete Rose," says Casey. "And he's the best Pete Rose there is."

Every three days, a new group of people comes looking to strike it big at the tables. And as they wander Caesars either to stop the hemorrhaging at the craps table or to enjoy the fruits of their good luck, for the price of a hand of blackjack they can walk away with a souvenir of Dad's favorite player and a funny story to tell their parents or grandkids.

"Where you from?" Rose asks a woman with white hair. "San Antonio," her group of four says in unison. "Your team's getting old!" Rose says, playfully jousting with the group about their hometown NBA team. "Would you like to take a picture?" Rose asks. As the senior citizens circle around behind the table, Rose continues to engage. "Sir, are these your daughters?" he asks the only male. The women laugh. Another woman says, "We're from Texas, so we know when to wear our boots." The group laughs and Rose laughs the loudest.

He playfully squeezes the thigh of one of the women as she sits next to him. "When are you going to get into the Hall of Fame?"

she asks. "Well, ma'am, the fastest way for me to get there is to die." Then Rose lets out a genuine guffaw, slapping her like a team­mate on the thigh. The senior citizens, with signed jersey, bat and ball in hand, leave with souvenirs for their grandkids, a story to tell and a photo to prove it. "Did you know my biggest demographic here is women in their 40s through 60s?" Rose knows, and he knows one other thing with certainty: You have to give people their money's worth.

It's rare that a person walks by Rose in Las Vegas and doesn't want to talk about the Baseball Hall of Fame. It feels much like standing in purgatory and offering passers-by directions to heaven.

"Once in a while you get a crazy person who won't buy anything," Rose says. "They just come in here and yell, 'You cheated!' First of all, what's the point? Second, who did I cheat? I didn't cheat anyone but myself. Those guys that took steroids, they cheated Hank Aaron, they cheated Willie Mays, they cheated Babe Ruth. They cheated the game, the fans, everything. None of them are banned. Not one."

In 1989 he was accused of betting on major league baseball games via a book­maker, a violation of the major league rule that prohibits baseball gambling of any kind. Rose was suspended as manager of the Cin­cinnati Reds, a team he had helped guide to four straight second-place finishes.

After an investigation by major league baseball, Rose signed an agreement with then commissioner A. Bartlett Ciamatti that rendered him permanently ineligible to participate in the game, with the right to apply for reinstatement in one year. (A facsimile of the document is available at the store in a copper binder with Rose's signature and the inscription "I'm sorry I bet on baseball" for $500.) Eight days after signing the agreement, Giamatti suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 51. Rose believes Giamatti's death ended any chance he might have had for reinstatement. Baseball then lobbied the Hall of Fame to put Rose on the permanently ineligible list. To this day he remains in exile both from the game he loves and from the institution where the majority of fans feel he belongs.

"Look, I understand I'm the reason I'm in the situation I'm in," Rose says. "I've got no one to blame but myself. I made a mis­take and paid the price for that mistake. The one thing that upsets me is that I was never given a second chance. This is America. I know if I was a drug abuser or a wife beater or a steroid cheater, I would have gotten another chance to come back. For whatever reason, people think gambling is a worse crime than that. And everyone knows that I only bet on my own team. No one's ever accused me of the other thing, because they know it's not true."

The fact that Rose cannot even bring him­self to say the words "bet against my own team" is perhaps his greatest defense. But the fact that he now spends several hours a day in Caesars Palace probably doesn't fit with base­ball's notions of a reformed gambler. "Let me tell you something," Rose says. "I wish base­ball would follow me around here. They'd

see I don't get off work and head down to the casino. I'm probably the only guy in this town who isn't betting tonight."

Rose has always lived his life with a defi­ant streak and an unfailing confidence. In many ways it was what drove him to become the holder of several records in America's most cherished pastime. "I think I have the record for most records," he says.

And while many former players maintain only a passing interest in the game, Rose remains an astute observer, often watch­ing as many as three games a day. Should the ban ever be lifted and he could manage again, no one would question his knowledge of big-league rosters. "What's amazing to me about the game today," Rose says, "is how much people accept mediocrity. If the manager accepts it, then the team accepts it. Then the fans accept it. That's why you have guys eating chicken and drinking beer in the clubhouse. Are you fucking kidding me? Baseball is a six-month-a-year occupa­tion. You work two and a half hours a day. How hard is it to put the effort in? Don't get me wrong, you've got some guys who are great players today who bust their asses. Jeter works hard. Pedroia works hard. But if I were playing today, it would be too easy to take second on an outfielder who doesn't hustle after the ball. Some teams don't care. You know who they are. There are about 10 teams in the major leagues that have no chance to make the playoffs unless all the other planes go down."

Winning is something Rose had known throughout his playing career. At the store he sells a signed jersey that lists his various major league records on the front. He points to one record, "Most games won."

"See that?" he asks. "I ask kids when they come in here to pick out the most impor­tant record. They always point to the hits. I always point to the most games won. That's why you play the game. To win."

Early in his career, Rose's burning desire to win was at times thought to be more the­atrical than necessary. It was when Rose ran to first after a walk that Whitey Ford of the Yankees labeled him Charlie Hustle. That term was meant to be derogatory, but Rose has worn it as a badge of honor for nearly five decades.

He still believes he brings that same work ethic to Caesars Palace every day. "I'd work here every day," Rose says. "What would I be doing if I wasn't here? I'd be home watch­ing TV. Here I get to talk baseball with the fans. But I also know what it takes to make the bosses money."

Without a strong throwing arm or great size and speed, Rose wasn't viewed as a serious prospect as an amateur. Ineli­gible for baseball while finishing high school ("I hated school, but that was my fault," he says), Rose considered playing college football when no pro-baseball orga­nizations showed interest. If not for an uncle who was a scout with the hometown Reds, Rose may never have been signed to a contract. Once in the organization, he impressed coaches with his positive atti­tude and tireless passion for the batting cage. If he couldn't leave a dust cloud with fleet feet, he would make one diving head­first into a base.

When he finally got the call to the big leagues in 1963, his veteran teammates shunned the optimistic rookie. "You've got to remember, the team won the pennant in 1961," Rose says. "In 1962 they won 98 games and finished third. Those guys all thought they were going back to the World Series." The team had a steady second base­man named Don Blasingame, who was a favorite among the veterans on the team. To them, Rose was a brash kid who was confident without having ever done any­thing at the big-league level. Yet manager Fred Hutchinson believed enough in Rose to make him an everyday starter. The veter­ans gave Rose the cold shoulder for taking their friend's job.

"The only guys that would hang out with me were Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson," Rose says, remembering the two African American stars of the team. "Frank and Vada took me under their wing. I remember one night we were out on a West Coast trip. They took me to a club in Oakland, and I was the only white guy in the place," Rose says, laughing. "And no one was going to fuck with me, because they had to deal with Frank. He was as tough as they came. That's when the front office told me to stop hanging out with the black guys on the team." Did he? "Fuck no. Those guys were great to me. They were my teammates. No one was going to tell me who to hang out with. You know that Frank Robinson was the only man ever to pinch-hit for me? I can live with that."

"Sit down, sir. Where are you from?" Rose says as two men in their late 40s wear­ing T-shirts and jeans approach the table. There are two distinct levels of treatment that Rose distributes to the people who tra­verse the store. The window-shoppers who gawk and look for a free interaction get a polite wave and maybe a "Hi" every third or fourth time. The paying customers receive a royal audience with the Hit King.

"New York," the two men say. One of them slides a photo of Rose across the table. The photograph was taken in Yankee Stadium during the 1976 World Series, when the Reds swept the Yankees. It captures Rose's headfirst slide into third as third baseman Graig Nettles awaits a throw.

"New York," Rose says. "We whipped your ass in there. Get out the broom. The sweep is here." Rose personalizes the photo and signs it for the New Yorkers. For the $75 price of the photo, Rose will inscribe it as the customer wishes, so long as the inscrip­tion is respectful. When people don't specify an inscription, Rose usually adds "Hit King" and "4,256 hits" on the memorabilia for an extra flourish.

"The next year, the Yankees got Don Gullett and won the World Series," one man says.

"Let me tell you about Don Gullett," Rose says. "This is a true story. Did you know in high school, in the football state champion­ship game, he scored 66 points? Ran for 11 touchdowns. Isn't that something? Don Gullett, from Lynn, Kentucky."

"Who do you like in the Super Bowl, Pete?" the other man asks. "Don't know," Rose fires back before the guest can com­plete the question. "Don't need to know until 3:37 p.m. on Sunday."

"Do you live near here, Pete?" the man asks, trying to keep the moment alive a bit longer. "I live 1.1 miles from here," Rose says. "It's faster for me to get home than it is to get to my car. 1 timed it the other day. It takes me three minutes to drive home. It takes five goddamn minutes to walk from here to my car."

"Well, this was a pleasant surprise," the other New Yorker says, gathering his memorabilia.

"Take care, guys," Rose says, shaking hands. "Enjoy your stay, okay?"

As the men leave the table, Rose opines a bit on the strategy of headquartering in Las Vegas six days a week. "See, those guys are from New York. But a lot of the people we get in here come from North Dakota, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana. This is a big trip for them. They're not used to seeing a celebrity, and when they do, they don't even get a chance to talk to them. Here, they can take pictures, ask questions, whatever."

In this, Rose is selling more than just an autograph. He's trying to sell a memory. And as you see the people who file into the store, they all have different memories they want to take away—a father who wants his son (wearing a baseball uniform) to meet the guy who always ran to first base. A couple who went to college in Cincinnati who want to meet the hometown hero. A woman from Philadelphia who wants to surprise her dad with a signed ball from his favorite player.

In one instance a group of women who look as though they arrived from central casting for Mob Wives darts into the store. Though it's only 1:30 p.m., their blood-alcohol level seems more appropriate for 1:30 a.m.

"Oh my God, Pete! Remember me? You called my dad last year," says the ringleader of the group, who is wearing a shirt more suitable for a five-year-old boy and carry­ing the plastic cup of choice for sorority keg parties.

"Didn't he have back surgery or some­thing?" Rose asks.

"That's right! Can you talk to him?" she asks.

"Nope, can't do it. Someone else just asked me to talk to their son and I said no. I've got to be fair."

"Oh, please?"

"Sorry," Rose says.

A store employee quickly escorts the women toward the back of the store, hop­ing they might buy some merchandise in an effort to sway Rose.

"What's he thinking?" Rose asks. "They ain't buying anything. The only time I'll get on the phone with someone is if they're really sick. Had a woman come in today, she brought her dad here a few years ago. I took a picture with him and signed it. He died a few weeks ago and they buried him with the photo in the casket. She just started bawling."

"Take a look at this. Isn't she something?" Rose says. While waiting for the next cus­tomer to arrive, he scrolls through photos on his iPhone. Shifting from the default photo, the quintessential image of Rose,

helmet flying, diving headfirst into third base, he hustles into the gallery of his girl­friend, Kiana Kim.

Kim, a 27-year-old model and actress who owns a hair salon in Los Angeles, has been dating Rose for the past four years. "Most people think it's only been two years," Kim says. "That's because a website ran a photo of us at a fight here in Vegas two years ago. They said I was a $20,000-a-night call girl." To which Rose adds, "Everyone knows that none of that shit on the internet is true."

The two met in Valencia, California, where Kim lives during the week with her two children. She mentioned to Rose that she owned a salon in town but that the economy had been tough on business. Rose offered to make a personal appear­ance and sign photos for the first 500 people who came to the salon. After that, they began spending more time together as friends. Soon they became a couple.

"She thought I was a football player," Rose says. "She didn't know who I was, but she knew who Steve Garvey was, right?"

"Shut up," Kim says, smacking him on the arm. "I grew up in Los Angeles, and my dad was a big Dodgers fan, so I knew who Steve Garvey was. Dad knows who Pete is, and he is happy for me. One time Steve was signing where Pete used to work, and the fans were like, 'Oh my God, Steve Garvey!' And they just walked right past Pete."

"I know Steve well," Rose says. "He was a good ballplayer. He was a nice guy. Do you remember the year he knocked up a couple of girls? I said, 'Steve, let me tell you one thing. I bet on the Breeders' Cup, but you won the son of a bitch.'"

As Kim exchanges pleasantries with a store employee, Rose flips through a variety of provocative shots of Kim until he settles on one baseball-inspired image. "Look at

this," he says. "Isn't she something?"

In the photo, Kim peers over her left shoulder with her back to the camera to show off Rose's iconic number 14 jersey. The jersey has been shortened to just above the small of her back. Replacing the tradi­tional white baseball pants are a pair of lace thong panties that reveal more than they cover. A Reds hat, bat and ball complete the ensemble.

"What are you doing, Pete?" Kim asks, hearing her name mentioned.

"I'm just showing him some of your pho­tos, babe," Rose says. As he continues to scroll, he settles on a fully nude photo of Kim and hands her his phone. As she sees the photo, she gasps and looks at us in horror.

"Pete! What are you doing? Did you show him this?"

"No, but that's the photo you took for playboy a while back. It's not like anyone hasn't seen it." Then Rose starts giggling. "What's the big deal? You look great, don't you?"

"I can't believe you," she says, smacking him on the arm, then smiling.

"Check this out," Rose says. "We go out to eat in Cooperstown with some of our friends up there. We start talking about reality shows. They're like, 'Every famous couple has a name, like Brangelina. What's yours?' Then they start making stuff up. What about Hits and Tits?" Rose starts laughing as he recounts the monikers. "The inmate and the playmate? Melons and felons? Perjury and surgery?"

Rose and Kim start laughing uncontrolla­bly. "That's the thing people don't realize," she says. "People make a big deal about our age difference, but we make each other laugh. I buy him gag gifts all the time. Once I bought him a machine that made different fart noises. He had a ball."

"One time," Rose says, "we're laying in bed. True story. She had me laughing so hard, we both couldn't stop. I was laugh­ing so hard I couldn't stop farting, and she pissed the bed."

Kim covers her face, mortified. Then she peeks up over her hands. "That is actually true," she says.

"Look, I don't feel or act my age, and she's older than you would think judging by the way she looks," Rose says, looking longingly at Kim. "If you're happy and I'm happy, who gives a shit what anybody else thinks?"

As Kim leaves to run some errands, Rose turns his attention back to customers. A woman is about to purchase a signed jersey for $400. Rose slaps my leg as he watches Kim walk out the door and says, "Do I look unhappy to you?"

During a break in the action, Rose doodles on more paper. He draws a series of lines and symbols. "Do you know what that is?" he asks. "That's my autograph in Japanese. How many other guys do you think take the time to learn other people's cultures like that? Don't they go crazy when they see that, Francine?" Rose playfully slaps the store's assistant on the thigh.

"They go crazy, Pete," she replies with no emotion.

"See, there's no better ambassador for the game than me," Rose says. "How many guys are out there five hours a day talking base­ball with fans and promoting the game? No one. Hank doesn't do it. Willie doesn't do it. There's just me. And I love it. I'll do it every day."

The conversation moves back to the Hall of Fame. This year, Barry Larkin, another homegrown Cincinnati talent, will be inducted into the hall. "He's my first player being inducted," Rose says, referring to the time he was Larkin's manager. "I love Barry. Great guy. But let me ask you this: If Barry was eligible next year, do you think he'd be a Hall of Famer?" Rose is referring to the loaded 2013 Hall of Fame ballot that includes several controversial candidates such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Mike Piazza. "See, I don't understand that shit," Rose says. "Either you're a Hall of Famer, or you're not."

At this stage, Rose continues to be in the not category. To Rose, that means baseball's all-time hit leader will be excluded from the hall forever, unless he is inducted. The rea­son? Business.

"Look at Jeter," Rose says. "Great player. He's got close to 3,100 hits, okay? He's 37 years old. He still has another 1,100 hits to go. Even if he's healthy and he can keep playing at a high level, is someone going to pay him $20 million a year when he's 44 or 45 years old?"

Even at the age of 71, Rose pines to come back and manage. When I broach the subject of whether he would accept a compromise from baseball, perhaps a job in which he couldn't influence the outcome of the game as a manager, he says, "Well, how would you feel if you did something and you were sorry you did it? You made a mistake. And they said, 'Well, let him back in, but don't let (concluded on page 141)

HIT KING

(continued jrom page 138) him write anything.' Would you be okay with that?"

"How much are they paying me to come back?" I ask.

"Fair question," Rose replies.

"Let me tell you something else," he says. "I can say this. I think Hank Aaron would say this. Babe Ruth would say this. Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle. I never watched myself hit on video and I never hit a ball off a tee, and I got 4,200 fucking hits. I mean, a guy strikes out on a ball that bounces in front of home plate, and he runs back into the dugout to watch it on video. Why the fuck would you put yourself through that?

"I get texts from Joey Votto. Sometimes I'll watch his at-bats to see what he's doing. I used to get texts from A-Rod a few years back. A-Rod would say things like 'I don't know what's going on, Pete. I'm hitting inside the ball.' I would say, 'Alex, I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.' I see him in the dugout fidgeting around, practicing his swing. Would you fucking relax? You're going to fail seven out of 10 times and you're going to go to the Hall of Fame. You can't think about hitting all the time. Calm down! I would tell him that you've got to just get a pitch and hit the fucking ball hard somewhere."

At what point, I ask, does the dream die? When will he be too old to suit up and travel around the country to teach young men making millions how to relax and make the unnatural experience of beating an object moving at 95 miles per hour with a stick feel natural? "Shit, I love to travel," Rose says. "I don't feel my age at all. Sign me up tomorrow."

At 4:30 p.m. the store employees do one last scan of the surrounding area to make sure there are no potential customers. No need to leave any money on the table today. After the signing, Rose and Kim invite me to join them for dinner at Old Home­stead, a steakhouse that has just opened in Caesars Palace.

"I'm sorry, I can't seat you for another 15 minutes," the hostess says. "The servers are all in a meeting and we don't open until five. What's your name?"

"Rose," he replies. "R-O-S-E." We sit at a side bar table until we are called. "I can't believe we can't sit at a fucking table," Rose says. "Watch, as soon as the manager realizes I'm here, they'll come over and kiss my ass."

Rose shows me a photo of his grandson, Petey's boy, who's now seven. Rose's son is now a minor league manager in the White Sox organization. "This seven-year-old can play. You've got to see him hit. Now take a look at this!" Rose scrolls through his photos to find a picture of himself at a similar age. They look astonishingly similar, as though it could be the same person. "Isn't that some­thing? You've got kids?"

"I do," I say. "I have a son who is five. He didn't want to get on the school bus today. He tried to convince his mother it

was a bad idea. The train is much faster. He's very smart."

"That's a kid after my own heart. Does he play ball yet?"

And this is what makes the Rose experi­ence so successful. I've seen it with other people all day, but now I experience it first­hand. Rose can crank out the greatest hits on his personal jukebox on demand—the collision with Fosse, the fight with Bud Har-relson, the Big Red Machine—but it's when he shows a natural curiosity in you that he's at his best.

No one understands the tradition of base­ball, passed from grandfather to father to son, like Rose, and certainly no one has ever monetized it this successfully as an individ­ual. His curiosity about people makes every person for whom he signs an autograph feel more like a friend and less like a business transaction. It's part of the hustle of being Charlie Husde. As great a storyteller as Rose is, he's an equally deft listener. And if you come back to the store a year later, he's likely to remember the conversation you had.

As we are seated in the practically empty restaurant, Rose and Kim talk about the future. Kim is pursuing an acting career. "I was just in a Roger Corman movie," she says. She shows me a revealing photo of herself wearing a 1970s wig. "I play a Viet­namese stripper. It's about guys fighting a war, but it takes place inside a video game. I went to nail salons to tape the Vietnamese women to get the accent right."

She has also just read for a part on CSI: Miami. "One of the producers of the show is from Cincinnati," Rose says. "She invited Kiana to come read for a part."

The unlikely couple has also filmed hours of footage that they hope will become a pilot for a reality show they are shopping to vari­ous networks. A camera crew followed them around for several days, including a trip to Cooperstown during the Hall of Fame week­end last summer.

"It was crazy," Kim said. "We filmed a bit in front of the museum, and as soon as peo­ple saw the cameras, they started to come over to see what was going on. When they saw Pete they went insane."

"I didn't go inside the hall or anything," Rose says. "I didn't want to cause any trouble."

"The one thing that bothers Pete the most is the alienation," Kim says. "When I go to Cooperstown, I feel it. When they have the ceremony and the guys are all together and he's not included, you can feel it most."

"The thing that alienates me more is that I never got a second chance," Rose says. "Hell, the guy who shot the pope got a sec­ond chance, for Christ's sake. The guy that shot the freaking pope!"

"People say, 'Why is he still gambling?' And I know you say you're not doing any­thing illegal," she says looking at Rose, "but for your specific case it doesn't look good."

"Listen, I'm here because my job is in Las Vegas," Rose says. "This is the only city in America where this would work. If my job was in Hoboken, I would be there seven days a week."

"But they still see you in the race book."

"Watching a game? I can't watch a game in the race book anymore?"

"Babe, why do you think I'm always watching Twitter?"

"Are you back on that shit? Every time someone says something, it's the truth?"

"People see something and they put it on Twitter. What if Bud Selig sends someone down to watch you?"

"I hope he does!"

"But what if they see you going up to the window?"

"So it's okay if A-Rod comes in to make a bet? And he's going to make a hell of a big­ger bet than I am. Or Jeter?"

"Your case is different. They're not look­ing for a second chance. You are. This is why I never talk to you about this. You have your point of view. Other people have theirs, and Bud has his."

"I'm not around undesirables and I'm not doing anything illegal. She's like all the guys that lecture me. You have to change your life to bow down to them. It's like Bill O'Reilly told me. He said, 'They're going to make you grovel.'"

"But if that's what it takes, you do it! Peo­ple have this conception that because he's in Las Vegas all the time, he has this direct relationship to gambling. It's so not true. He watches TV most of the time. But if people see him in Caesars Palace, it's like, 'Oh, I saw him in the casino.'"

"I don't look at Facebook and all that shit, because it's bullshit."

"The world looks at it, Pete."

"That don't make it right. How many times has there been stuff on there about me that was untrue? Ninety percent of the time."

"He just won't do what it takes," Kim says. "When it broke that A-Rod had used steroids, the next day he has a press conference. 'I'm 50 sorry.' But there's no way Pete will do that. He's got too much pride. He's so stubborn. He'll ruin things in his life because he's so stubborn. I think people think he's this grumpy, bitter guy, but he's not. Stubborn, yes, but happy. He's completely carefree and he'll go with the flow. And for his friends, guys like Mike Schmidt and Joe Morgan? He'll do anything for them."

The manager comes to the table. "Mr. Rose, did you enjoy your dinner?"

"Yeah, it was great," Rose says. "We tried to come here the day before New Year's Eve, but you were all full."

"That's when you call me," the manager says, handing Rose his card. "If there's any­thing you need, please call me right away."

"Look, the bottom line?" Rose says. "I'd radier be in baseball. I'd be having fun. I'd be making several million dollars too. But look at my life. I'm doing fine. I'm making a good liv­ing. I can't see myself ever being with another girl. Kiana's the last one for me. I enjoy talk­ing baseball every day. I've got a good life. I can't control any of the other stuff."

The check comes and we pay, and Rose and Kim walk me through the casino toward the elevators. He'll make the 1.1-mile drive home in three minutes and will likely have Fox News turned on in six. With that, Rose and Kim bid me farewell. "Listen, good luck widi your son," Rose says. "Make sure he gets on the bus and goes to school. School's impor­tant. Enjoy the rest of your stay, okay?"