Pete Rose and Buster Posey

Two Very Different Sides of the Same Coin

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS

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Happy Friday, and today, I mourn the loss of Major League Baseball’s all-time leader in hits, Pete Rose, who died earlier this week, while also heralding the return of franchise legend Buster Posey. He’s now running baseball operations for my beloved SF Giants.

While some may scoff at my comparison, here’s the deal: the coin of which they’re on different sides is a biggie, the competitive coin. Both were vicious fighters on the field, Rose more literally, Posey more figuratively. But make no mistake: Despite his movie star looks (and baseball movie name) Posey was also a cold-blooded killer on the baseball diamond.

In Rose’s case, that competitiveness led to his demise: He was banned for life from baseball because he placed bets on the team he was managing at the time, his hometown’s Cincinnati Reds.

But no matter: Pete Rose is a permanent part of baseball’s brand, good and bad. His accomplishments are too many to count, but apart from having more hits than anyone, he lead Cincinnati’s storied Big Red Machine to 2 consecutive championships in the 1970s, along with countless play-off and all-star game appearances. He played with a vigor not seen before or since, and he did it for decades.

But he fucked that up by violating baseball’s most sacrosanct rule: you can’t bet on baseball. He was clearly seeking the adrenaline he no longer got from playing - to his everlasting regret.

The rest of his life was not pretty, spent first lying about what he did, and then after coming clean, groveling around for money wherever he could get it, mostly by signing baseballs. Despite appearances here and there, he never was fully welcomed back by MLB, and remains (wrongly) out of the Hall of Fame.

Posey? He’s channeled his competitive fire into things far more productive. In his first full year as the catcher for the Giants, he won the Rookie of the Year award while directing them to their first of 3 championships in 5 years. And he had one of his best years in 2021, his last as a player, and one where the Giants won 107 games.

He and his wife Kristen have also raised real amounts of money for pediatric cancer research, and are the face of that cause here in California. He was an early investor in Body Armor, and also owns a stake in the Giants themselves. And now he’s running baseball operations for them.

Posey, too, could be said to be chasing adrenaline. Just differently from the tragic path Rose chose.

And as it turns out, both had terrible pile-ups at home plate during their careers.

They were on opposite sides of that coin, too.

Ray Fosse, Dinner Guest

This is Ray Fosse, the catcher in 1970’s baseball all-star game.

“I didn’t know Pete at all until the night before the game,” Fosse recalled of the evening he and his Cleveland teammate, Sam McDowell, along with their wives, had dinner at the Rose home. “We met at some function and he invited me over to his house and we sat up half the night talking baseball.”

Sure, back in 1970, the all-star game meant more to the players. A lot more. But that still doesn’t really justify Rose barreling in to Fosse - it was an exhibition, after all.

Well, at least he had had him over for dinner the night before.

10 Seconds of Seriousness: Ray Fosse’s career would never be the same, and he suffered pain and complications from this hit for the rest of his life. Fosse himself died in 2021.

Buster Baseball

I frankly still have a hard time looking at this, and avoid the video completely. In 2011, Buster Posey was injured so severely many thought he’d never play again.

His leg was shattered in this violent collision with the Florida Marlin Scott Cousins.

Buster Posey somehow returned in 2012, but that’s an understatement. He won the league MVP that year, while guiding the Giants to another championship.

And now he’s on the literal top of the Giants’ world. Sadly, Pete Rose didn’t live long enough to emerge from the bottom of baseball’s.

The comparisons are stark, yes, between Pete Rose and Buster Posey. But it’s vivid proof that ambition and desire (“competitiveness”) can be channeled in the most positive - and negative - of ways.

With results equally as stark.

FROM THE UNWASHED MASSES

Thank you, Randy Smee for your very kind correspondence - which you can check out at my all-important Substack.

Thank you for reading this newsletter.  

KLUF

Two sides, indeed - check out the second song. Great album, too.