Book Review: Rose on Rose

(This is about a book. If you are unwilling or unable to read books, you will not be interested.)

I finished up Pete Rose's Autobiography, My Prison Without Bars, and boy oh boy is it something. If you hated Pete Rose before, you are really going to hate him now.

The book is 50% whining about how baseball is treating him, 50% bragging about himself, and 50% making excuses. Not just bragging about his baseball "ability", but plenty of other things as well. Among them: cheating on his wife, marrying a 19 year old when he was 49, and, this is my favorite, how he never played golf but could hit a 260 yard drive in the middle of the fairway whenever he wanted to. Not to mention how he was the world's best speaker, world's best entertainer, and would have a million different successful business ideas if ______________ wouldn't have happened. And also his son would have been an all-star in MLB if anybody would have given him a chance, but nobody would because he was a Rose.

He admits to betting on baseball, but spends a whole lot of book time complaining about how he was framed and the proof was fabricated. Although he now admits it. If you think that's confusing, it's pretty much how the whole book went. He cites a couple of quotes from doctors regarding his "thrill-seeking personality" and how he can't help what he does, and has the nerve to compare his problems with Jim Eisenreich's Tourrette's Syndrome (not the funny kind, the bad kind).

The book proves not only that he bet on baseball, but showcases just how much of a scumbag this dude is and was. And lest you think the apple falls far from the Tree, perpetual failure Pete Rose Jr. was not only mentioned in the Radomski affidavit as a steroid user, but he was busted in 2005 for distributing GHB to his teammates.

This was a horrible book that left me feeling scummy and dirty. If anybody wants it, just let me know and I'll send it to you, free of charge.

That being said, the dude still belongs in the Hall. Numbers don't lie, people.