ShareThisBy LONNIE WHEELER
Scripps Howard News Service
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Let's take this in numerical order. In an Aug. 25 ceremony honoring Dave Concepcion, the Cincinnati Reds, at last, will retire No. 13. You know what comes after 13.
Actually, the subject has already been broached. At the board meetings of the Reds Hall of Fame _ which is currently featuring a fabulous first-floor display of Cincinnati's most famous, accomplished and disenfranchised ballplayer _ there has been informal discussion about adding 14 to the numbers that the organization has removed from circulation and memorialized on a stadium facade. The question is how far the club can go with this Pete Rose thing.
If it were entirely up to the Reds, Rose would be on the wall for sure, in the booth perhaps, in the clubhouse never, in the local Hall of Fame without a doubt. But the terms of his suspension, under which Major League Baseball has disowned him for the past 18 years, state that the all-time hits leader is not to be honored in a public way on the field of play. In other words, no ceremonies. No fanfare. No formal recognition of any sort.
Of course, there have been convenient exceptions. There was the celebration for the all-century team during the 1999 World Series, after which _ after the crowd has roared its affection for the alienated icon _ NBC's Jim Gray used his live microphone to badger Rose about betting on the game. During the 2002 World Series, there was also the occasion of MasterCard's Memorable Moments promotion, which recognized Rose's record-breaking single as No. 6 on the list.
But the Reds know better than to confuse those circumstances with theirs. Even when the commissioner's office approved the museum exhibit _ the team was confident that it would _ the consent was not without a caveat.
"Display of history is not a problem," said John Allen, the Reds' chief operating officer. "When I talked to the people at MLB, they said, 'That's fine, but you know the rules. If you've got him at the park, make sure it's not game day.'
"To the best of my understanding, you can't treat him on the field differently from any other fan. So any ceremonial thing you might want to do in that regard, you can't do. They would not allow it."
Consequently, the Reds have not entertained the kind of full-blown production that will attend Concepcion in late August. But they've pondered the alternatives, which might include a retirement of Rose's number without the accompanying hoopla. And by proceeding with the Hall of Fame exhibit, they've demonstrated a willingness to test the parameters of Rose's permanent suspension.
It may ultimately come down to their determination along those lines _ to how committed the club is toward honoring Rose in its own way. Bob Castellini's ownership of the franchise is still in its early stages, and he's in no position _ yet _ to put it on the line. On the other hand, Castellini is a Reds-loving, sleeve-rolled Cincinnatian in the Rose tradition. And he seems not lacking for chutzpah.
Even so, it's not quite as simple as that.
"I don't know how MLB would react to a request that the number actually appear on the stadium wall alongside the others," said Reds Hall of Fame director Greg Rhodes. "If you got to the point where they would say, 'Yes, you can retire his number,' you still have the issues of the on-field ceremony and where the number would be displayed."
The irony, of course, is that Rhodes was articulating these legitimate concerns while standing in 2,000 square feet of autographed Rose bats, baseballs and uniforms, among other precious items totaling about $1.5 million in appraised value. And all of that is perfectly cricket, according to the silly distinctions that the commissioner's office has set forth.
The obvious theme here is that the time has come for those distinctions to be brought into compliance with common sense. To start with, even Rose's loyal hard-liners would concur, for the most part, that Charlie Hustler has no business wearing a big-league uniform or working in a big-league ballpark, with access to players and managers. But why, within the stadium that sits on Pete Rose Way, should that preclude the acknowledgement of all that he did at the previous one?
Why must his misdeeds prohibit the formal validation of his singular career within an edifice that features, in addition to a Rose Garden and Pete's Pizzeria, prominent murals of the team that Rose personified? Why does his enduring punishment have to leave something conspicuously missing in a ballpark that's embellished by a 4192 Club _ that being the number, other than 14, that represents Rose's legacy _ not to mention a scoreboard image of the bat and ball that were involved in the 4,192nd hit?
The Baseball Hall of Fame is another matter. It was after Rose's ban that Cooperstown officials voted to disallow members of baseball's permanently ineligible list, the roster of which he alone comprised. If the ice were melted a bit, it's not inconceivable that the national shrine might go for a dip in the warming waters.
But like Rose's life and career, it all has to start in Cincinnati.
(Contact Lonnie Wheeler of the Cincinnati Post at www.cincypost.com.)
