‘Pete was Cincinnati’: Reds fans gather to pay their respects to Rose

CINCINNATI – Near the entrance to Great American Ball Park on Monday night, Shane Vicars placed a baseball among the bouquets of roses in front of the statue of Pete Rose.

The priest’s signature adorned the ball. He and his wife, Candie, live just a few blocks from the Cincinnati Reds’ home stadium, and they felt compelled to make the short walk to the stadium and pay their respects.

“I have a lot of baseballs signed by him,” Shane Vicars said, “and I just wanted to give him one.”

Another baseball had the words “RIP Hit King” and “Thank you” written on it. And then of course there were roses. Half a dozen were on the plaque with his name, his nickname – “Charlie Hustle” – and the years he played for the hometown Reds.

Vicars, 50, is no different than so many other children who grew up in Cincinnati idolizing Rose, who died Monday at age 83.

“Pete was Cincinnati,” Vicars said.

Geoff Moehlman was born just weeks after Rose’s final game in 1986. Although Moehlman never saw Rose play in person, here he was sitting on a large concrete baseball 15 feet from the Rose statue. It shows him jumping upside down and sitting in front of the stadium, opposite a sports betting shop. Moehlman, wearing a red Reds cap and a white jacket with “Cincinnati” emblazoned on the chest, watched the statue and people passing by and paying their respects, just as he did.

Outside of Cincinnati, Rose’s legacy is complicated. To make matters worse, he was banned from Major League Baseball for gambling. It’s complicated by his lies about his gambling. Complicating matters is not only the fact that he hasn’t been inducted into the Hall of Fame, but also the fact that he appears outside the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown every year for competing autograph signings. To make matters worse, Rose admits to having had sexual relations with at least one 15-year-old girl during his playing days.

Here it is less complicated.

“He’s Cincinnati,” Moehlman said. “Hard-working city. Hard-working player.”

Rose grew up just 7 miles from where the Great American Ball Park now stands. He went to Western Hills High on the city’s west side, made his big league debut for the Reds at Crosley Field, passed Ty Cobb as the game’s all-time leader at Riverfront Stadium, and was the team’s manager when his baseball career ended in a scandal.

Rose’s statue was dedicated in 2017, a year after the team inducted him into the Hall of Fame. A large video board outside the Reds’ Hall of Fame building, attached to the ballpark, showed a black-and-white image of a young Rose wearing a Wishbone C cap looking out over an area now home to restaurants and Bars are located.

Rick Walls is executive director of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame, which has 93 members, including Rose.

“There are two videos that are viewed the most, one by Pete Rose and one by Johnny Bench,” Walls said. “It’s the 4,256 baseballs. It’s the marker outside where he broke Ty Cobb’s record. It’s the statue in the museum with the Big Eight with Pete. It’s the statue outside the ballpark. There are field trips and we talk a lot about Pete. I think it always comes down to effort, determination and perseverance – that’s the way he played the game and that’s what we can teach people.”

David Risner wore Pete Rose’s jersey and gave roses as a tribute. (C. Trent Rosecrans / The athlete)

David Risner was 8 years old in 1970 and begged his parents to let him watch the All-Star Game at Riverfront Stadium. He recalled that Rose came to third and forced American League catcher Ray Fosse into the game-winning hit in the 12th inning. Risner saw Rose play at both Crosley Field and Riverfront Stadium.

“No one is immortal, but this is the least you can achieve,” said Risner, who wore a Pete Rose jersey as he attached his roses to the statue. “The story of my life was coming here to the games with my father. My mother is 84 and her health is deteriorating. Pete was her favorite player. I also have to think about my mother.”

Sarah Chase’s connection to Rose was also through her father. Chase, 44, grew up in Detroit, but her father was from Cincinnati — specifically, the West Side. Rose was of course his favorite player. In 2022, Chase met Rose and had him autograph her left forearm. Then she got this autograph tattooed on her, more for her father than for Rose. Her father had died four years ago, but for him, she and her partner Giovanni Rokez cut short their romantic evening at a restaurant in the east of the city when they heard the news of Rose’s death.

Chase, who now lives in Cincinnati, said she got tears in her eyes when Rokez told her the news. Her first reaction was to drive to the west side of town because it didn’t feel right to be in the more affluent east side of town while mourning Rose. The two stopped at Kroger to pick up flowers. Then Chase went back and decided to get a bottle of rosé too.

When she checked out, she received a sign that she had done the right thing – the bottle of wine was $12.99 and with the $1.01 tax, it was even for No. 14 himself, Peter Edward Rose $14.

(Top photo of tributes left at the Pete Rose statue in front of Great American Ball Park: C. Trent Rosecrans / The athletic one)