Pete Rose: Thanks for the Memories!

Growing up I was a tomboy.

Baseball was my passion. 

I collected baseball cards and traded them with friends.  If only I had traded the sweet sheets of bubble gum I might have at least one tooth in my head without a filling, but alas, I was an avid fan and could not get enough baseball cards.

Back in the "stone age" of my youth, girls did not have and were not allowed to play on little league teams.  My sons who are 36 and 39 cannot identify with this concept, because they grew up with girls playing on their baseball teams, and often being the "star" players.

The boys in my neighborhood tolerated me, which encouraged me to keep my glove well oiled with neatsfoot oil, the ball tied into the pocket of the glove overnight and tied shut with a pink head scarf in preparation for the next game.

It was heaven being able to walk the three blocks to the grade school grounds in anticipation of a long afternoon swinging the bat, pitching, and catching fly balls.

Meeting one of my heroes was out of the question, though, because my father died when I was seven and I had no one to take me to a big league game.

My hopes were raised when my mother re-married a man who claimed to have been a professional ballplayer.  He looked the part, was handy with a ball and bat, and to my glee coached a pony leagues team of my male peers, which was much more than "great."

In time he was "outed" as being a phony, and our closeness became detrimentalto our family's dynamics and I ended up running away from home to live with my grandparents and an 'adopted' aunt when I was just fifteen.

Now I am 62 years old and seldom leave my house.

 I used to spend long afternoons and evenings teaching my sons all the ins and outs of the sport I loved, and since their friends used to gather at our house I was considered a "cool mother" to have back then.

I have purchased many autographed pictures of ball players from eBay, but I have yet to meet any stars, with one exception.

Pete Rose came to Peoria for one of the sports clubs fund raisers (long before the scandal started), and because I had a girlfriend who had no boundaries, he ended up spending the night with her.

My bonus was an Instamatic picture of Pete in his underwear and an autographed baseball for my son.  I don't even want to consider how these were obtained.

No matter how I came by them, I am truly grateful, because even the scandal that eventually sent him to the "big house," I always loved "Charlie Hustle" and learned a lot of life's lessons from him.

It doesn't have to be a "good" lesson to be  a valuable one.