Banned Rose still follows baseball closely

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- Definitely scratch one name from the list of people who prefer the pitching-dominant baseball being played in the big leagues these days. Pete Rose doesn't inscribe memorabilia -- such as the Reds jersey in the front window of Safe at Home Collectibles on Friday -- with the moniker "Hit King" for nothing.

Despite being estranged from it, Rose still loves the sport. He follows the White Sox's Class A team in Bristol, N.C., which is managed by former Long Island Duck Pete Rose Jr. And the Hit King himself watches two to three major league games every day.

"That's the good thing about living in Las Vegas. You get the early games at 4 o'clock, the Midwest at 5 o'clock and West Coast at 7 o'clock," he said in the nicely air-conditioned shop a few doors down from the Baseball Hall of Fame. "I'm a Reds fan because I'm from Cincinnati. I watch Joey Votto and those guys that I talk to a lot."

He just wishes the batters had the upper hand. "I don't know what the problem is with hitters today,'' he said. "Man, there are so many guys who are swinging at balls bouncing in the dirt, so many guys hitting .230, .245. It's hard to believe that [Derek] Jeter and Ichiro [Suzuki] are both batting under .270."

Baseball icons have made their annual pilgrimage here, this time for the Hall of Fame induction of Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven. Most icons will attend both formal and fun functions and will sit on the stage for the ceremony Sunday. Not Rose. He is here only to sign memorabilia, having been banned from organized baseball for betting on games.

Still, the estrangement seems one-sided. Rose eats and breathes the game. And he sure still has insights.

He disagrees with people who say Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak is the most unbreakable of the sport's records. "I did 44,'' he said, "and there are guys who can run faster than me."

He strongly disagrees with the perspective of Chase Utley, who went into a shell when he got on a hitting streak a few years back. "The hitting streak is for the country. Once you get into the 40s, let them enjoy it, too,'' Rose said. "What are you getting paid for? To hit and to play every day. That's all you're doing in a hitting streak.

"There are a lot of great players in baseball today, a lot of great young pitchers. The thing that disappoints me is that there's not a lot of fundamentals. No one can give me a sound reason why teams don't take infield practice anymore. Let me ask you a question: If you've got a guy who's not a good defensive outfielder, how is he going to hone his skills once he leaves spring training if you never throw from leftfield to home or from rightfield to third base?''

The one issue on which he did not have an opinion was whether players from the steroid era ought to be excluded from the Hall. "You have to make up your own mind on that," he told a reporter who has a Hall of Fame ballot. "It's going to be interesting. The luckiest guy in that group is A-Rod. You know why? By the time he's eligible, it's going to be 2023 and a lot of people will forget about everything, you know what I mean?"