Even now, I believe, baseball fans hunger for Pete Rose. They don't hunger for the old Pete Rose, of course, the crotchety Rose penciling himself into the lineup so he could break the unbreakable hit record, the manager Rose who had a standing bet on his team, the unrepentant Rose who would show up in Cooperstown to sign autographs for his very own Hall of Fame, the repentant Rose who will write "I'm sorry I bet on baseball," on a baseball and then sign his name for the right price. No, it's the young Rose we're talking about here, the in-your-face Rose, the run-over-Ray-Fosse Rose, the run-to-first-base-on-a-walk Rose, the switch-hitting, double stretching, headfirst diving, double-play busting, Bud-Harrelson fighting, father admiring, often quotable, self-promotable, always notable Peter Edward Rose. I suspect that people who are younger than, say, 35 or so, have only fuzzy memories of that Rose, or no memory at all.
....Here's a fun Rose statistic that tells you something: Rose is second all-time in doubles, and he led the league in doubles five times. But the thing that strikes a chord is that he never led the league in doubles BEFORE he turned 33. That seems to say that Rose never lost his drive, his need to make the wide turn at first base and dig for second whenever he saw a fielder move a bit slowly to the ball or tip off balance after he reached it. Here's another way to look at it. There are three men who hit 40 or more doubles three times after their 35th birthday. They are all Hall of Famers and all-time hustlers — Tris Speaker, George Brett and Craig Biggio. … Pete Rose did it four times.