The man I marvel at is the one that’s in there day after day, and night after night, and still puts the figures on the board. I’m talking about Pete Rose, Stan Musial, the real stars. Believe me, especially the way we travel today, flying all night with a game the next night and then the next afternoon, if you can play 162 games, you’re a man.
~ Sparky Anderson
As a baseball player, Pete Rose was one of the greatest ever. He broke Ty Cobb’s all-time record of 4,191 hits, and he played on three World Series champions. As a father, Pete Rose fell woefully short of that standard. He was rarely at home, was self-involved, and was generally disinterested in the lives and activities of his daughter Fawn and son Pete Jr. He ran around with other women, eventually divorcing his wife and remarrying a much younger woman. Pete Jr. grew up for the most part without a father. When his baseball team won the American Legion World Series when he was a teenager, not only was his namesake father not in attendance, he didn’t even know about it until years later.
The mistakes Pete Rose made eventually caught up with him. His compulsive gambling led commissioner Bartlett Giamatti to ban him from baseball in 1989. The government convicted him of criminal conduct relating to tax evasion and sent him to prison. His world collapsed. His largely forgotten son, playing in obscurity in the minor leagues, could have written him off, since his father had never been there for him. But he didn’t. He made the difficult trip to visit his father in prison, trying to mend their relationship. He explained:
People are always asking me, “How can you not have bitterness toward your dad? Of course I get mad at him. But think about it: He’s the only father I have and the only one I’ll ever have. It’s stupid to have one of those relationships where you don’t talk. It’s hard for him -- very hard -- to show emotion. That was how he was brought up. So what if he’s failed me at times? I’m sorry, but that is not enough to keep me from loving him.
After years of bouncing around the minors, in 1997 Pete Rose, Jr. was called up to the Cincinnati Reds. When he got his first hit in the major leagues, a man stood and applauded, wiping away tears from his eyes. It was Pete Rose. The power of forgiveness salvaged a relationship that was headed for destruction. As we try to get along with each other, there is much we can learn from this young man’s marvelous attitude. Especially when we remember how his words describe how our Heavenly Father sees us: “So what if he’s failed me at times? I’m sorry, but that’s not enough to keep me from loving him.”
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