WBCA Podcasts

City Talk with Ken Meyer (Keith O'Brien)

Ken Meyer interviews guest Keith O'Brien about his book "Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball", Pete Rose's career, Pete's struggles off the field and his gambling troubles that ultimately ended his baseball career, & more!

Duration:: 52m
Broadcast on:: 03 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) - WBCA radio is proud to present City Talk, where fascinating conversation is alive and well, with your host, Boston radio veteran, Ken Meyer. - If you're a baseball junkie like I am, you will be involved with any kind of book you can get a hold of, including one on a fellow named Pete Edward Rose, or better known as Charlie Hustle, by a wonderful author named Keith O'Brien. And Keith, first of all, congratulations on a wonderful book. - Well, thanks so much, Ken. I really appreciate that. - Now, kind of a two-part question. It's been over 30 years. Why bring his case to interest now? - Well, I would say three reasons. The first is, while you're right, Pete Rose is, of course, one of our most iconic athletes and has, of course, been banned from baseball for 35 years. I would submit that in the 35 years since he's been banned from baseball, we have forgotten why we ever cared about him in the first place. And so what I wanted to do was go back and tell that story and tell the full story, the rise and the fall of Pete Rose and do it with unprecedented access and, frankly, unprecedented reporting. That's number one. Number two, in the 35 years of Pete Rose has been banned, the world has changed. And the world is in particular changed in the last six years since the sweeping legalization of gambling across America. And so what better time to go back and revisit the story of one of our most notorious gamblers? And that's what Pete Rose is, then now. And then I guess thirdly, Ken is just that this is, to me, put simply, one of the most compelling sports stories in American history. It is really just a compelling, human tale. And I really began to think of it as honestly a Greek tragedy that just happened to play out in and around an American baseball field. And I think when you think about Pete Rose's story in that way, as a storyteller, the options are endless. - Your prose is magnificent in this book. Take us back to September 5th, 1985. - So yeah, so September 1985, Pete Rose is on the cusp of breaking the all-time hit record held by another notorious athlete, Ty Cobb. This record of 4191, 4191 hits was believed, even just a few years earlier, to be one of those records that would simply never be broken. Even Pete Rose, when he reached the milestone of 3,000 hits in 1978, said out loud that there was no way he was going to catch Ty Cobb. And so when he gets to the precipice here, it is something we just don't see that much anymore in American sports. Everybody tuned in to watch. The record breaking game would happen at home for Pete Rose, at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. The game, of course, was a sellout. Millions of people are watching live on national television as networks broke away that night from their regular scheduled programming to carry the app app live. And this moment would really come to define Pete Rose in a lot of ways. He breaks the record, he gets to first base. The standing ovation can last for seven minutes, seven minutes. This is how much Americans, and in particular, I would say Midwesterners loved Pete Rose, identified with Pete Rose. And in this moment, as the ovation goes on and on, this man who had made his whole career out of being tough, out of working hard, you know, finally cracks. He finally breaks down. He begins to cry on first base. - Did you, is Eric Shaw the picture for the Padres? Is he still alive? Did you get a chance to talk to him if he was? - Yeah, Eric Shaw, no, unfortunately, Eric Shaw died many years ago, died young. And I was not able to interview him, you know, but I did, of course, in every critical scene, every meaningful scene in this book, try to interview as many principals, as many witnesses, as many people who were there, you know, to try to paint the picture. And I certainly did that with this moment here, because it is really, you know, one of the defining moments of Pete's career. It is the high water mark of Pete's career. You know, everything after this really is the unraveling of Pete Rose. - Were you at that game? - Great question. So, you know, I am a Cincinnatian. And that's another reason why I was drawn to this story. You know, I was born in the early 1970s. You know, and so I grow up in Cincinnati at a time when Pete Rose is, you know, one of the great heroes in the city. And so to answer your question, no, I wasn't at the game. I couldn't get tickets to that game. But, you know, like a great many Americans, not just Cincinnatians. I remember exactly where I was on that night. I was standing in my living room of my house on the east side of Cincinnati. And I was standing next to my father watching this at bat. And we were standing Ken because no one was sitting in this moment. No one was. - He had another great moment in a 44 game hitting streak. - He did. 1978, the summer of 1978, Pete Rose, as you said, goes on a 44 game hit streak. You know, this, as any baseball fan will know, comes up short of the all time record. Joe DiMaggio holds that record. 56 games in a row in 1941. But this hit streak for Pete Rose is notable for a few reasons. The first is while Pete is devastated when he comes up short, when the streak ends, that streak of 44 games is the longest hit streak that anyone has been able to put together since Joe DiMaggio in 1941. So what is that? 82, 83 years, this is the longest hit streak anyone has put together. Secondly, and I think for my purposes, for narrative purposes, even more importantly, this hit streak comes at a time when Pete Rose's life is beginning to sort of spin out of control off the field. You know, most baseball fans will know that Pete Rose gets in trouble with Major League Baseball in 1989, in trouble for gambling, gambling on the Reds, gambling on baseball games and is ultimately banned from the game as a result. But, you know, what I learned in the reporting for my book, Charlie Hussle, is that the problems that Pete Rose has in 1989 don't start three weeks earlier, three months earlier, even three years earlier. This is really almost like a 20 year freight train acoming. And, you know, by the early 1970s, at a minimum, Pete Rose is already betting with bookies on sports. Based on my reporting, by 1975, there are people in the Reds clubhouse, his teammates who are concerned about his relationships with some of these characters off the field. And in 1978, again, based on my reporting, there is some kind of intervention that happens in the front office of the Cincinnati Reds, before a game, right around the time when the streak starts. This intervention is a meeting with Pete Rose, the Reds president Dick Wagner, and at least one high ranking official from Major League Baseball itself. And the discussion that day is about gambling, it's about bookies, it's about Pete's relationship with bookies and it's about his debts to bookies. And so, his gambling is a problem in 1978 and his personal life is also a problem. He has been engaging in extramarital affairs for a number of years now. And one of these affairs with a young woman down in Florida will lead to the birth of a child, that Pete is unwilling to acknowledge as his own. And this particular scandal, which is happening really in the shadows of 1978, will lead to Pete separating from his long time and first wife, Carolyn Rose. So while Pete is on this incredible hit streak in the summer of 1978, he is living in a friend's house in a spare bedroom. This is Pete's life, sort of the dichotomy of Pete Rose. - Right, let's go back a little bit into the early days of Pete Rose. And when I say that, it sounds like in the beginning, you'd have never thought of him becoming an athlete because of some of the problems that he had growing up and being in high school. - Well, that's true. I would submit that Pete Rose is one of the most ordinary, extraordinary athletes we've ever seen. And frankly, I think when you look at him as I did, the only way to regard him is as a miracle. It's a miracle that we ever came to know the name Pete Rose. He is raised in a working class neighborhood and the far reaches of the west side of Cincinnati. The west side was and is still today in many ways, a working class part of town. Pete's neighborhood was especially that. It hugged the river, the Ohio River, down near the floodplain of the river itself, a neighborhood of mechanics and dock workers. And Pete is never the best athlete on his own youth sports teams, not his baseball teams, not his football teams, not even at Western Hills High School where he attends school in the late 1950s. He's not the best athlete on those teams there. He's not a hot prospect. He's a small kid. He is not coveted by professional scouts who come to watch games at Western Hills. And Pete himself is not a great student either. He nearly fails out as a sophomore has to repeat his sophomore year. There was some speculation at the time if he would even do that, if he'd even graduate. So all of these reasons, all of these circumstances really do make it something of a miracle that Pete Rose ever hops out on the other side. But as you put it in your book, he had to ask a family member for help. - That's right. So Cincinnati was and is a little big city, the kind of city where everybody is separated by one or two or three degrees. If you don't know someone, chances are you know someone who knows that person. And Pete graduates in the spring of 1960 from Western Hills High School. He is not going to college anywhere. He is not being recruited to play baseball or football anywhere. He is at the time playing essentially in a men's amateur league in rural southwestern Ohio. This is a kind of work-a-day league of young men who are working day jobs and then playing baseball at night. And in fairness to Pete as a 18-year-old or 19-year-old that spring, he does tear it up. You know, he does bat over 500. And who calls in a favor to the Cincinnati Reds, but his uncle, Buddy Bloebound, his mother's older brother. Pete's uncle buddy had briefly tasted baseball glory in the 1930s. He had played in the minor leagues in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for one season. But in that one season, Uncle Buddy makes a friendship, a relationship with one of his teammates on the infield. Uncle Buddy played shortstop, the third baseman in Cedar Rapids that year was a man named Phil Sege. And Phil Sege by the late 1950s has had a long career in baseball. First as a minor league player, then as a minor league manager, then as a professional scout. And then as the farm director, essentially the minor league director for the Cincinnati Reds. So Uncle Buddy calls up his old pal from Cedar Rapids. Phil Sege asks him to take a look at Pete Rose. Phil Sege really has very little interest in Pete as a player or a person. And really as a favor to Uncle Buddy, that assigns Pete to a meager contract, a $7,000 contract. This is a time when even some of Pete's teammates at Western Hills are getting double that or 10 times that, it was nothing. And so that is really the first big break in the life of Pete Rose. And there will be many more to come. - If you're just joining us, you've missed out on what is turning into a marvelous interview on a guy named Pete Rose, written by a marvelous author, called "The Rise and Fall of Charlie Hustle." And his name is Keith O'Brien. Now I had forgotten and remembered it as soon as I started reading this book, that the people that gave him that nickname were two of my heroes when I was growing up, meaning Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. - That's right, yes. 1963 is when it all happened. One thing I wanted to do with my book, Charlie Hustle, was really drill deeply, especially into critical and pivotal moments in Pete's life on and off the field. And one of those moments, in my opinion, is undoubtedly the moment when he's given this nickname, Charlie Hustle. I do think, in a great many ways, it was in part the nickname that we as fans were drawn to. It's suggested that he wasn't talented. It's suggested that he worked hard. And what is the American story, Ken? What is that story that we tell ourselves, that we tell our children and our grandchildren? We say that if you try hard, if you work hard, if you hustle in this country, you can do anything. And that is really the Pete Rose story. And it begins in March of 1963. Pete Rose at that point has made the most of that break he got from his uncle Buddy. He's played three years of minor league baseball in the Cincinnati Reds organization. One of those years, his first year was pretty mediocre, but the next two are really good. And he enters spring training in 1963, as just objectively speaking, the fourth best second baseman in the Cincinnati Reds organization. But by mid-March, 1963, something is happening for Pete Rose that will happen many times over the course of his career. He is being chosen. He is being selected. He is getting preferential treatment because someone likes him. And in this case, that someone is the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, Fred Hutchinson. Fred Hutchinson was also a former Major League ballplayer. He was a pitcher. And he had succeeded Hutchinson had in a great many ways as Pete was succeeding. He did it on grit and tenacity and a dogged desire to win. And so Fred Hutchinson essentially sees in Pete Rose, this kid, nobody, Pete Rose, something that he likes about himself. And by mid-March 1963, Pete Rose, again, the fourth best second baseman on this team in this organization is starting to start at second base in spring training games. And one of these starts comes on a Sunday in mid-March against the New York Yankees. And these were, as you suggested a minute ago, Ken, the preeminent Yankees of the day. This was Yogi Berra and Roger Maris, and it was Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. And Pete Rose will play that day with the kind of desire and fury that we will come to know him for later. And at some point in this game, Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford are basically laughing at him and standing on the top step of the Yankees dugout and mocking Pete Rose for how hard he is playing in what is essentially a practice game, a scrimmage, and what they will call him isn't exactly clear. In the days to come, some newspapers will report that they called him Henry Hussle. Other newspapers will say that they called him the Charlie Hustler. And it's only in the days after that that the press settles on a story that the press likes and they say that they called him Charlie Hussle. And so this part of the story is a bit apocryphal. We will never know exactly what they said. What we do know is this. It was not intended to be a compliment. They were mocking this kid from the west side of Cincinnati because he wasn't like them. He wasn't touched by the hand of God with baseball talent. He was working so hard to make the team that it was plainly obvious. But something happens that day Ken that will happen for Pete Rose many times. And he has the common I think in some ways is still happening today. Pete Rose rebrands this moment. And when he does make the Reds that spring as the starting second baseman when he does begin to travel to town after town, you know, cities he never thought he'd visit, you know, Los Angeles and Chicago and New York. Pete Rose is more than happy to tell the B riders in those towns about the time that Mickey Mantle called him Charlie Hussle because he liked the way that he played. - All right, two things I wanna talk about next. First of all, a rather iconic play in the 1970 All-Star game with Ray Fossey for the American League as a catcher and Charlie Hussle as a National League ballplayer. Let's start with that. - Oh, wow, yeah, that's a big one. You know, to me that moment and the All-Star game, 1970, July 14th, 1970 is really the moment when Pete Rose becomes Pete Rose, the national icon. You know, in the 1960s, you know, Pete makes the team and is a really good player. He's rookie of the year. He wins back-to-back batting titles in '68 and '69. But the fact is the Reds weren't that good in the '60s. They didn't make the World Series with Pete Rose. They weren't on national TV. If you didn't live in Cincinnati, if you didn't live in a National League city, there's a very good chance you'd never seen Pete Rose play. That will change the night of the 1970 All-Star game. 50 million people will tune in to watch on NBC. The game at a brand new stadium in Cincinnati. It's only been open for two weeks. Riverfront Stadium is sold out and has been for weeks. And this game, you know, is being played at a time when the All-Star game still mattered. The American League and the National League didn't really like each other. They wanted to win this game. And it will come down to the wire. It will go to extra innings. It will be 4-4 in the bottom of the 12th when a series of events happens that essentially puts Pete Rose in a position to score. And when he comes barreling around third base with two outs, who's blocking the plate, but Ray Fossey, the best young catcher in the American League. And he will collide into Ray Fossey with such fury that Fossey will be injured. That his entire season will not be the same. And in some ways, I would argue his entire career is not the same. Ray Fossey is never the same player he was after this collision. And the same is true for Pete Rose, but in the opposite way. You know, this is the moment when Pete Rose becomes Pete Rose, when he becomes the iconic Charlie Hussle, a man who was willing to do anything to win a game, even a meaningless mid-summer exhibition game. - Was it really necessary to do what he did? Was there another way he could have scored and still have it matter? - Well, you know, this was debated that night and has been debated ever since. You know, I tried to interview anyone who was on the rosters of those two teams that night and did speak with many of those all-stars. I also, you know, scoured the national press to read all the accounts of this collision. And what's clear is this. Pete Rose is doing what he's supposed to do. He's on second base when the hit is made to the outfield. He locks in on his third base coach Leo Durosher, who was then the manager of the Cubs. Durosher also notably a notorious gambler himself. And what does Durosher do? Durosher sends Rose, sends him home. As Rose gets close to the plate, it's clear based on the video and based on my interviews with people, including Pete Rose, that he is intending initially to slide head first. But then he sees Fossey. Fossey is significantly bigger than Pete. He is straddling the third base line up the line. You know, if Pete Rose slides head first, he probably breaks a collarbone. And so at that point with really no time to decide, he corrects and just sort of collides into him like a linebacker, you know, spearing a wide receiver. And the call, by the way, is easy for the umpire to make because the ball never lands in Fossey's glove. So, you know, this particular play has been outlawed now by, you know, modern rules. You can't block the play without the ball. You can't hit the catcher like Pete Rose did that night. But at the time, this was baseball. And while there was some debate after the game that Pete Rose should have slid around Fossey, hook sliding around him. Many people on the field that night, including all the future Hall of Fame managers who were there and including Joe Tory himself, a future Hall of Famer and a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. Believe that Pete Rose had done the right thing. - All right. Had he tried to contact Fossey after it was over? - The two men knew each other. Not well, but they knew each other. In fact, they had had dinner together the night before the collision. And, you know, they would, you know, Frost paths many times in the years to come. But the relationship would grow Fossey. You know, Pete, you know, again, sort of cashed in on this moment. You know, he still signs to this day, you know, his photographs of him colliding into Fossey. You know, meanwhile, Fossey, you know, again, is never the same. And I'll give you a specific example of what I mean. Entering that game, a young Ray Fossey, the best young catcher in the American League, had 16 home runs on the season, 16th. He is on pace to hit more than 30 home runs. And anyone who knows anything about baseball knows that a catcher who can hit 25, 30 home runs a year and do that for even eight or nine years is a Hall of Famer. But after that collision that night, his left shoulder is injured. He informs his manager at the Cleveland Indians that it is injured and he can't swing like he wants to. The manager asks him if he can still catch, if he can still play the position. Fossey says, of course. And the manager keeps him in the lineup because he'd rather have Ray Fossey as a defensive catcher than the backup. And so his shoulder never heals properly. And for the rest of that season, he will only hit two home runs. And he will never again, and the rest of his abbreviated career ever hit more than 10 home runs in a whole season. - Did you talk to Fossey? Fossey died in late 2021, just a few months after I began my research for the book. Unfortunately, when I reached out to him through the Oakland A's, he was already quietly quite sick. So that was devastating to me that I didn't get a chance to talk to Fossey. But I did speak to many others who knew Fossey knew him well. And Fossey himself gave many interviews about the collision over the years. - I think everybody who's a baseball fan will certainly remember, I know I do the 1975 World Series with the Red Sox and Cincinnati. But there are also great moments that you highlight in here about the playoffs between the Mets and Reds in 1973. - Well, it's another defining moment for P. Rose. In the early 1970s, this is the beginning of the big red machine, one of the great teams of all time in baseball history. But the Reds can't break through. They lose the 1970 World Series to the Orioles. They failed to make the playoffs in '71. They lose the '72 World Series to the Oakland A's, a team that the Reds were heavily favored to defeat that October. And then they answered the 1973 playoffs facing the underdog New York Mets. I mean, the Mets had barely won their division. It took them the entire summer. They win it essentially on the last day of the season. And they do so sort of back through the backdoor. The Cubs and the Cardinals had opportunities to win it, didn't do it in the Mets almost accidentally win the division. Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Reds have just run away with the NL West. They are a juggernaut and they believe that they are going to destroy the Mets. And indeed, most of the baseball riders thought the same thing. But that doesn't happen. And in game three, Rose sort of takes matters into his own hands with the Reds trailing to the Mets in danger of going down two games to one. He essentially instigates a fight at second base by sliding hard into the Mets shortstop, Bud Harrelson. And you know, this fight is one of, if not the biggest fight and major league baseball postseason history. It's a benches clearing brawl, it's total madness. The fight between Rose and Harrelson spawns at least two other fights around him, it's mayhem. What's sort of a marvel about it is that it results in no ejections, no suspensions, there's no investigation by major league baseball. Rose indeed trots out to left field at Shea Stadium to take his position in the bottom of the inning. And when he does, he is pelted with trash, garbage, beer bottles, a whiskey bottle from the bleachers and upper deck at Shea Stadium. It's again, a scene you can hardly imagine in major league baseball today. They have to shut down the game twice. The Mets are in danger of forfeiting the game because the fans, you know, won't stop throwing things at Pete Rose. They have to send out a contingent of Mets players, including the late great Willie Mays and Tom Seaver to left field to try to quell the revolt. Which they do, but, and of course, the Mets go on to win. But that's moments, I think, just says so much about Pete Rose, and I think it says a lot about how baseball has changed. I mean, you know, in major league baseball today, you know, a pitcher can't even look cross-eyed at a batter without getting warned or tossed from the game. In those days, people fought, they hit each other with baseballs and they took the field again and they settled their scores on the field. - All right, let's jump ahead. A question I'm sure you have been asked many times, and, but one I cannot resist. If Bart Giamatti had lived, would Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame today? - Yeah, this is one of the great speculative questions. You're right, Ken. You know, Bart Giamatti is the commissioner of baseball in 1989, when Pete Rose is banned, he and Rose signed the document agreeing to Rose's lifetime banishment. And then Bart Giamatti, who was only in his early 50s and just at the very beginning of his tenure as commissioner, dies tragically within days of a heart attack. It is, I mean, just a Shakespearean twist and a devastating one too. And, you know, so many people have speculated over the years that Giamatti lived, you know, you know, maybe Rose gets in because Rose, they are speculating, you know, paid a price for Giamatti's death. I mean, there were people on sports radio and even in the sports pages after Giamatti died, blaming Rose for Giamatti's death. And while it's true that Giamatti was a young man, he was not in good health, he was overweight and he was a smoker. He smoked several Pax's cigarettes a day. So, you know, does Rose pay a price for this? I would flip it the other way around, Ken. You know, I don't know if, you know, Pete was kept out of a hall of fame all these years because of Giamatti's death. I don't think that's really exactly true. But I think what's a more interesting question is this. You know, Giamatti becomes commissioner because he's a people person. He's a connector, he's a communicator. This is who he is. He's not a former baseball player. He's not a business executive. And I do believe that if Giamatti lives, that he would have been able to coax Rose out of this corner that Rose paints himself into with his own lies in the early 1990s. You know, even after he's banned from baseball for gambling on the Reds and gambling on the game, Rose denies it. He refuses to admit this. And, you know, this is a lie that is damaging to Pete Rose, but it's also damaging to baseball. I think it's actually still damaging to baseball today. And so, you know, I do think that if Giamatti lives, Giamatti finds a way to get Pete to tell the truth in the early 1990s and maybe would have spared us, you know, three decades of this debate. All right, now, another question, would you let him in the Hall of Fame today? I mean, I figure that 30 years is enough time for forgiveness. Certainly, his off-the-field activities don't warrant it, but no one can top what he did on the field, which is why I asked that question. - Sure, well, yeah, this is one of the great late night sports arguments of all time. You know, I want to be clear about something here. You know, my book, "Charlie Hustle" is unique in many ways, but one way it's unique is that I'm not here to make a case for or against Pete Rose, you know? It's not the purpose of the book. You know, I think a great many things that have been written about Pete in the past have been written to make a case for or against him. I'm not here to do that. I wanted to tell the whole story, tell that story with granular reporting, and then let people, the reader, the fan, come to his or her own conclusion. But of course, you know, as a fan myself, I have thought a lot about it. And my feeling is, at this point, Ken is simply this. I think in general, we have lost perspective here. You know, we like to put athletes on pedestals and ascribe to them moral values that they may or may not deserve, that they may or may not have. And the fact is, we simply don't know that much about the people that we cheer for. And I would argue we're going to know even less about our star athletes going forward in a modern time when reporters simply don't have access to the star athletes and the way we once did. And so for all those reasons, Ken, you know, when it comes to Pete Rose and all of baseball's other nayer do wells and there are many. And by that, I mean the steroid users, the Barry Bonses, the Alex Rodriguez's, the Roger Clemens of the world. I believe that we should enshrine or not enshrine players based on what they did on the field. And then if what they did off the field is so wrong, well, then let's put it on the plaque at Cooperstown. Let's put it, you know, there for perpetuity on the plaque right next to their accomplishments for everyone to debate and discuss. - How'd you get along with his teammates? - Well, you know, Pete Rose had an enormous ego. And that ego, I had some benefit for him. You know, I think it's notable that Pete Rose doesn't have a lot of hitting droughts over the course of his career, not a lot of slumps. Pete Rose believes in Pete Rose at all times. And that's a great quality to have as a hitter. And certainly his style of play made him well liked by his teammates. You know, everybody wanted to play with someone who approached the game with the enthusiasm and really reckless abandon that Pete Rose had and used to his advantage. You know, I interviewed in the course of my reporting, you know, many of his former teammates, one of them was Bernie Carbo. Bernie Carbo who came up with the Cincinnati Reds in 1970 and would later go to the Boston Red Sox and then sort of drift to a number of teams. And Carbo told me something that I think is so interesting. He said that he wished that he had loved baseball the way Pete Rose loved baseball. You know, Pete loved to hit. He loved to be in the batting cage. He loved practice. He loved road trips. He loves sitting in the dugout, studying pitchers. He loved everything about the game. And so all those things made him, I think in general, you know, a teammate that people wanted to have. But of course, you know, his ego, that ego that helped Pete would rub some guys the wrong way. And he did not get along with everyone. And one of those people that he didn't get along with was one of his most famous teammates, Johnny Bench. - Johnny Bench, yeah, I was just gonna ask you about that. - The Hall of Fame catcher for the Cincinnati Reds. - Yep, yep. Now, in you're putting together this book, did you come across any resistance where people not willing to talk to you and did Rose try and block anything you tried to do? - So, you know, prior to this book of Pete Rose, it never spoke into an author for a project like this unless he had some kind of editorial control or unless he was being paid. And I wanna be clear, he did not have editorial control here. He was not being paid. But he did speak with me. I had 27 hours of recorded interviews with Pete Rose until ultimately he did stop calling me back. I have not heard from Pete Rose in over a year and a half at this point. And there were others, you know, that were resistant. I mean, you know, the Pete Rose story, as I said, at the outset of our conversation is really a Greek tragedy. And in a Greek tragedy, people usually get hurt. And Pete Rose did, you know, hurt lots of people. You know, his addiction to gambling and I believe based on my reporting, that's what it was. You know, hurt a lot of people. And so, you know, of course, there was at times resistance to speak with me. But, you know, over the course of my reporting, you know, I got access to people who have never spoken before. The people in Pete Rose's inner circle, three different men who placed his bets on baseball. X wives, X lovers. Again, people who've never spoken, you know, did ultimately open up and speak to me for this book, Charlie Hustle. And, you know, I'm just so grateful for all of their participation because it was only through that that I was able to really paint a portrait of Pete that I think we've just frankly never seen before. - If you are just joining us, you are listening to an interview with Keith O'Brien, author of the book, Charlie Hustle, The Rise and Fall of Charlie Hustle. One of the people that I feel most sorry for is Carolyn, his first wife. - Yeah, Carolyn Rose marries Pete in January, 1964. This is just a couple of months after the end of Pete Rose's rookie year, couple of months after he's won the 1963 Rookie of the Year award. Many of Pete Rose's teammates in the winter of 1963, '64 were stunned that he wanted to get married. Pete Rose was 22 years old. It was clear already to his teammates that he had an eye for women. They were perplexed why he would want to get married so young. But Carolyn was a beautiful woman and an engaging one. She, in a great many ways, matched Pete Rose perfectly. She was outgoing, she was extroverted, she was bombastic. She did and said whatever she wanted. All of these things were things that Pete Rose did too. And together by the early 1970s, they were like the first couple of Cincinnati. Carolyn really was at times more popular than Pete Rose himself. She had her own radio show. She spun records at a disco in Cincinnati. She would be interviewed at games. She was always there. And I did interview Carolyn over the course of two days at her home on the west side. While Pete has sort of moved on from Cincinnati and now lives in Las Vegas. Carolyn still lives just a mile really from where she lived with Pete in the 1960s and 70s. And my time with Carolyn was crucial to understanding Pete, I think. But also just one of those interviews that I won't soon forget. - Well, 150 hours, man, that's a lot of interviews. I have been in broadcasting since 1971. And I'm fascinated by broadcasters and their stories. A name that does crop up in here is Marty Brennan. - Yes, Marty Brennan is the long time voice of the Cincinnati Reds. He joins the Reds radio broadcast team as the play-by-play man in 1974. And we'll spend, I believe, something like 40 years calling Reds games. More importantly to me, Marty Brennan is one of Pete Rose's closest friends. They're the same age. They got along instantly. They would spend time together both at home and on the road in those years. And interviews with Marty Brennan and others who knew Pete Bass were crucial to me. - That's interesting because Marty Brennan's first broadcast was broadcasting Hank Aaron's 714th home run in 1974. - That's a great point. I never thought about that, Ken, but you're right. - Yep, and this one belongs to the Reds. I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed thoroughly this interview. It is a marvelous book. You are very accommodating. And I can't thank you enough for sitting down for this time to talk about a subject that obviously is, to quote a phrase, near and dear to your heart. - Well, it was my pleasure, Ken. I enjoyed the questions and I really appreciate your time. - Please get my best to Ellen Adair if you ever talked to her. The lady who read your audio book, you can tell her she has a big fan right here. - Oh, that's so great, Ken. I'll tell her. Yeah, she is not just a great narrator of the book, but a huge baseball fan too, which is one reason why I really wanted Ellen to be the narrator of this book and was so pleased when she was willing to do it. So I urge everyone, it doesn't matter to me whether you read the book on paper, in a digital format or in an audio format. Ellen does an amazing job narrating this story. - You know what? I knew she was a baseball fan and the way I knew it was, she didn't mispronounce any of the names. She got them all right. - We won't hold against her that she's a Philadelphia Phillies fan though, Ken. - No, we won't. We won't do that. Listen, thank you again so much for your time. Keep my telephone number. And if there's ever anything I can do or you come out with another book, well, it means give me a call. - You got it, Ken. Thanks again. Appreciate it. - You bet. And that'll do it for this edition of "City Talk." - Thanks for listening to another great conversation with Ken Meyer and friends. You can contact Ken by email. He addresses KJ Meyer7@gmail.com. That's KJ-M-E-Y-E-R7@gmail.com. Tune in next time for more conversation with Ken Meyer on "City Talk." (upbeat music)