E-Mail This Article to a Friend On Charlie Hustler, and the prospect of the Patriots actually losing BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

ON TUESDAY, I watched a man stand at a podium and claim how much he loved and appreciated the game of baseball. I believed him to be genuine, because I had watched Dennis Eckersley get all teary-eyed at his retirement press conference five years ago talking about how profoundly he would miss the game he had played for all of those 24 seasons. Just over five years later, Eckersley was at that same podium, again bordering on tears, talking about how much baseball meant to him as a newly elected member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame. I believed that baseball would be a worse place with Eckersley retired, yet I knew that the Hall would be a better place with him as a permanent member. The Eck did the game proud and never embarrassed himself, and he continues to immerse himself in baseball with his insightful post-game commentary for Red Sox broadcasts on the New England Sports Network.

Dennis Eckersley was and is a proud ambassador for the game of baseball, an emotional man who never was quite sure he was good enough, and his heartfelt outpourings of gratitude and appreciation — at both press conferences — affirmed the longstanding belief held by both fans and the media: with Eckersley, the man we saw and listened to was without question the man he is: a straight-talking, passionate, balls-out competitor who never would shame the game he loved so much.

By contrast, in the past week I have seen a different man also claim to have immense appreciation and respect for the game of baseball, but this man is not yet in the Hall of Fame. And for baseball fans who care deeply for the sport, they can only hope that Peter Edward Rose, the despicable man who lied to fans, family, and writers for 14 long years to conceal his gambling habits, never gets the same opportunity to be honored in the way Eckersley will in the upstate–New York hamlet of Cooperstown this July.

Sportswriters are supposed to remain impartial about the people and teams they cover, but speaking as a human being I must admit that I loathe Pete Rose. Oh sure, I respect what he did playing baseball during his illustrious 24-year playing career. As a man without the classic inborn talent for the game, he worked hard and played even harder to make himself into an icon, transforming himself into a ballplayer who ultimately broke Ty Cobb’s hitting record and established numerous other Major League standards. That Pete Rose I have begrudging respect for, as do most fans.

It’s the manager Pete Rose and the banished-from-baseball Pete Rose that I, as a fan of the game — and respecter of basic humanity — cannot tolerate. It’s finally been admitted after 14 years that the Dowd Report was essentially correct: that as manager of the Cincinnati Reds Rose did bet on baseball, including games involving his own team. Of course, at the time Rose denied the allegations, even though the mountain of evidence eventually forced Rose to agree to then-baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti’s edict that he be banned from baseball, thereby forfeiting any chance at Cooperstown enshrinement. Yet despite agreeing to the expulsion, Rose denied the gambling allegations. He denied them to esteemed author Roger Kahn, who co-wrote Rose’s 1989 autobiography Pete Rose: My Story; to Giamatti’s successor as commissioner, Fay Vincent; to family members; and to the multitude of fans who continued to support Rose in spite of his supposed misdeeds.

Which was fine, as long as he accepted the terms of his banishment and didn’t seek reinstatement from the "permanent" exile to which he had agreed. But, of course, Rose didn’t. He continued to attend card shows and hawk his wares on shopping networks; he was even sent to the slammer for not claiming the resulting income on his IRS forms. Rose even had the gall to rent out a storefront shop on Main Street in Cooperstown from which he would sign memorabilia during the Hall of Fame’s annual induction-ceremony weekend.

According to Michael Sokolove’s excellent book, Hustle: Myth and Life of Pete Rose (Simon & Schuster, 1990), Rose post-baseball became a shady white-trash con man, using his name and reputation to open doors and get special treatment in every two-bit racetrack and other seedy establishment that he and his entourage could find, and he thought nothing of using his reputation to get a track clerk fired by claiming the minimum-wager gave him the wrong (a/k/a losing) betting slip prior to the race.

Rose was undeniably in denial about his betting compulsion. Although he claimed to current baseball commissioner Bud Selig that he never bet against the Reds or from the Cincinnati clubhouse, Tommy Gioiosa, one of the lowlifes who often placed bets for Rose, told the Boston Herald recently that Rose would occasionally call fellow managers like Tommy Lasorda and former skipper Sparky Anderson from his office prior to games — ostensibly for manager-to-manager chit-chat but in reality for inside information that Rose would parlay into wagers. Even former commissioner Vincent added fuel to the fire recently, telling the Washington Post that Rose twice tried to smuggle into the States suitcases of undeclared memorabilia money earned in Japan.

Rose applied for reinstatement to baseball back in 1997, but was told by Selig that no such consideration would be offered until he admitted to betting on the game and offered up contrition. Apparently not understanding the definition of "lifetime banishment," Rose continued his PR machine’s efforts to achieve forgiveness and reconsideration, and his three-minute standing ovation at an All-Star-game celebration of the All-Century Team in 2000 confirmed his belief that the fans were on his side.

And maybe they were, but the revelations that have finally been unearthed with the publication of Rose’s coming-clean autobiography, Pete Rose: My Prison without Bars (Rodale Press) are clearly a case of wa-a-a-ay too little, wa-a-a-ay too late. It’s bad enough that the book was released the same week the Hall of Fame announced its newest inductees, Eckersley and Paul Molitor, thereby overshadowing what should have been these two superstars’ hallmark moments. It’s bad enough that Rose continues to believe that not betting against his own team while serving as its manager somehow absolves him from any real penance. It’s bad enough that his off-field career was marred by broken marriages, womanizing, paternity suits, and overwhelming greed that resulted in a prison sentence and ostracizing even by teammates who were once his biggest supporters. It’s bad enough that those same teammates and baseball legends who once praised his record-setting performances now believe his transgressions far outweigh his belated "honesty" and so-called apologies. And it's bad enough that a man who reputedly so loved the game could not keep himself from breaking baseball's hallmark rule, the one implemented following the 1919 Chicago White (Black) Sox scandal. Indeed, Rose apparently thought the rule applied to everyone but him, given his presumed future Hall of Fame status. Yet such violation of the sport's rules cannot possibly be justified, condoned, or rewarded with an "all is forgiven" pass into the Hall. Pete Rose claimed to respect the game of baseball, and then proceeded to break its cardinal rule time and time again, because, as he reportedly told Commissioner Selig, "I didn’t think that I’d get caught."

Like it or not, as with all athletes of his stature, Rose was a role model — Charles Barkley’s claims notwithstanding. Yet Rose made it clear through his snubbing of baseball’s paramount no-no and various other crimes against basic decency that he was above the law. That’s why Selig should implement a two-year probation period on a Hall of Fame vote by the Baseball Writers of America. If that happens, the Hit King’s chances at induction rest at the feet of the Hall’s Veterans’ Committee, which is made up of existing members of Cooperstown’s elite. That would be the true test of whether Rose is really deserving of entrance into the game’s shrine, for it would then be left to the members of the Hall to determine whether Rose’s accomplishments on the field can overcome his deplorable conduct off it, and whether the existing Cooperstowners believe that he is indeed one of them — or the contemptible human being he has acted like since last donning the uniform of a player.

As a player, there is little doubt he is a Hall-of-Famer, but unfortunately for Pete Rose, character and integrity are also key criteria for entrance, and in those ways he has failed miserably. And no ill-timed book or Primetime Thursday interview can ever change that.

IT'S PROBABLY BEEN at least 15 and a half years — since "Morgan Magic" consumed the Hub and its baseball team — or maybe even since the 1985-’86 Boston Celtics, who won their last World Championship in such dominating fashion, that New England’s sports fans have felt such a feeling of invincibility surrounding one of their teams. Nobody really saw it coming from this year’s New England Patriots, particularly after the team went an unremarkable 2-2 after its first four games this season before reeling off 12 straight en route to the AFC East title and becoming the top seed in the conference. But when a team puts together such a streak, and does it in such dramatic fashion at times, people begin to feel that Lady Luck is playing a role, and that their team is predestined for gridiron glory. Joe Morgan’s ’88 Sox team won 12 straight games and 19 of 20 after John McNamara’s firing on its way to the AL East crown. The Celtics team that hoisted banner number 16 in June of 1986 lost just one game at home all season, going 67-15 overall during the regular season and boasting four future Hall-of-Famers in the line-up. During those teams’ respective runs, a loss seemed inconceivable, and was certainly unexpected and incomprehensible on those rare occasions when it did happen.

Heading into the Patriots’ AFC semifinal match-up with the Tennessee Titans, I’m not so sure that New England fans — who haven’t seen their team lose since the foliage was at its peak on September 28 — are mentally prepared for the possibility that their team could actually lose on Saturday. Most of the match-ups and conditions seem to favor the Pats, but this still appears to be New England’s toughest foe since the winning streak started on October 5 — against these same Titans. (In fact, it could be the Patriots’ toughest game remaining.) Sure, Steve McNair and Eddie George are hobbled, the thermometer will most likely be in single digits, the Patriots are sizzling and well-rested, and head coach Bill Belichick is bound to devise some game plan that will confound and neutralize the potent Tennessee attack.

But what if the breaks don’t go the Patriots’ way this time? What if Tennessee comes in and dominates the Patriots the same way Oakland did for three quarters in the Snow Bowl two years ago? What if Tom Brady has a bad game, or — gasp! — gets hurt? What if the team uncharacteristically turns over the ball six times?

The truth is, the Titans could very well win this game (though I doubt they will), and I’m not sure that New England Patriots fans can handle the truth right now. Doubt is hardly in area fans’ vocabulary right now, and that overconfidence could lead to a devastating and mind-blowing letdown by the stroke of midnight on Saturday.

Could the Pats’ magic-carpet ride end two games early? At home? Against a beat-up Titans team playing its third road game in a month?

We’re not saying it will. Just entertain the possibility that it could — Patriots True Believers should prepare their psyches.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com