‘The Pete Rose Way’

By Hal McCoy

Do All-Star games mean anything to today’s baseball players, other than the prestige and recognition they bring?

Do the results matter, win or lose?

It used to be, before interleague play, when the National League teams never played the American League teams.

The National League did not like the American League and vice versa. They wanted to beat each other in All-Star games. Bragging rights.

Ted Williams broke his elbow running into a Comiskey Park wall in Chcago chasing a fly ball in the 1950 All-Star game.

St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Dizzy Dean took a line drive off his big left toe in the 1937 game. When a trainer told him it was fractured, he said, “Fractured? The damn thing is broken.”

And he was never the same pitcher.

Yes, the game meant something to both sides.

Former Cincinnati Reds president Warren Giles became National League president and he minced no words in his desire for his league to win All-Star games.

It is said he told the National League players, “If you want to make the All-Star team next year, you better play hard and win this year.”

Former California Angels pitcher Clyde Wright said, “When we played in All-Star games, we wanted to kick each other’s butts. It wasn’t going to no party. We were playing a baseball game to win.”

One of the best All-Star games ever, and the most controversial, was the 1970 game in Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium, the year the park opened.

Pete Rose was the hero/villian, depending upon whether you were a National Leaguer or an American Leaguer.

To Pete Rose, every game was to be won — spring training, regular season, World Series or an All-Star game.

“It’s not one of those deals where some players say, ‘Ah, I’d rather have the days off.’ That wasn’t the way it was. We wanted to make the All-Star team and win the damn game,” he said.

As was said at the time, Pete Rose would run over his grandmother at home plate to win a game, any game.

He proved it in that 1970 game. He didn’t run over his grandmother, he ran over Cleveland Indians catcher Ray Fosse.

He didn’t just run him over, he knocked off his catcher’s mitt and sent Fosse sprawling in the home plate dirt as the ball sailed past Fosse. . .and Rose scored the winning run.

And it was totally legal. Fosse was blocking home plate, something catcher’s could do at the time that they can’t do in today’s game.

Fosse played nine more years after the collision fractured and separated his left shoulder, but said he was never the same, “My shoulder hurt constantly and became arthritic. I felt the pain long after I retired.”

There were 51,838 fans as witnesses, including President Richard M. Nixon.

Fosse scored the game’s first run and drove in the second run. Brooks Robinson doubled in two runs in the eighth inning and the American League led, 4-1, entering the ninth inning.

But the National League rallied with three runs in the ninth, the tying run crossing home plate on a sacrifice fly by Roberto Clemente, scoring Joe Morgan, then with the Houston Astros.

Rose singled off Clyde Wright in the 12th inning and reached second. Jim Hickman hit a one-hop single to center fielder Amos Otis, who owned a David-type slingshot for an arm.

Rose rounded third and bolted for home and said, “I actually started to slide head first, but Fosse had the plate blocked. I was saying, ‘If I slide now, I’m probably going to be out and break both my collarbones.’”

So Rose put his shoulder down and ran over Fosse like a runaway beer truck.

Brooks Robinson, playing third base, watched the play unfold and said, “I guess Rose didn’t have any place to go, so he ran over him.”

And that’s how Pete Rose, as only Pete rose could do it, made certain the National League beat the American League, 5-4.

“My father was at the game and if I’d slid like a little sissy he would have waited outside and kicked the hell out of me,” said Rose.

And there was a back story to the game.

Rose and Cleveland Indians pitcher Sam McDowell were friends. Rose invited McDowell and his wife for a dine-out dinner the night before the game at the Sycamore Shores restaurant. McDowell asked if Fosse and his wife could join them and Rose said, “Of course.”

After dinner, the entire entourage went to Rose’s house for conversation and cocktails. Fosse talked incessantly about fellow catcher Johnny Bench because there was no interleague play and he had never seen Bench play in person.

Fosse was not voted to the All-Star game by the fan vote. Detroit’s Bill Freehan was and he started the game. American League manager Earl Weaver selected Fosse as the back-up catcher.

He said that every year after the collision it was played over and over before every All-Star game, “And I watched it every time.

“I wouldn’t have changed a thing,” he said. “Long after I am gone (he died in 2021) I’m sure they will still be showing that game-ending collision to future generations.”

That is the only way fans will ever see a monstrous home plate collision like that.

First of all, it is illegal for catcher’s to block the plate. And secondly, the All-Star game nowadays is a party, a time to have fun, truly an exhibition during which the outcome is immaterial, meaningless.

That wasn’t the Pete Rose way.

“That’s the only way I knew how to play,” he said. “I played to win every game. I played hurt. I played tired. I played hard as hell. Don’t tell me it’s an exhibition. Don’t ever tell me to take it easy.”

And he never did.