Ontario baseball fundraiser speaker Pete Rose longs for baseball's glory days

It would be hard to find someone as passionate about baseball as Pete Rose.

The guy didn't earn the nickname Charlie Hustle for no reason.

It is well documented that during a 1963 spring training game against the New York Yankees, Rose, a rookie for the Cincinnati Reds, drew a walk against Whitey Ford and proceeded to sprint full speed to first base prompting Ford to hit Rose with the Charlie Hustle tag that stuck with him for the rest of his life.

And every single time he stepped on the field, Rose vowed to live up to the name.

It was how he played the game. It was how he ended his career as the all-time hit king with 4,256 hits. It was how he stretched his very first hit in his major league career after an 0-for-11 start into a triple off of Pittsburgh Pirates flame thrower Bob Friend. All-out hustle all the time.

Charlie Hustle: Pete Rose coming to Mansfield for Ontario baseball fundraiser

It is something Rose is longing for in today's game. From the youth level all the way up to the major leagues, it seems baseball has become an unfamiliar sight to Rose, who is scheduled to speak at the Ontario Baseball Fundraiser at 6 p.m. on Nov. 4 at Westbrook Country Club in Mansfield.

He longs for the days when kids could be kids in baseball. When sandlot games were played all around neighborhoods all across the country. When things weren't posted all over the internet just to gain attention and when the goal of playing the game wasn't to become the next viral video sensation.

Rose especially noticed it during the Little League World Series in August.

“First of all, I love the game,” Rose said. “It is everything to me. But I will be honest, I didn’t really enjoy watching the Little League World Series. They are treating these kids too much like they are big leaguers, and they aren’t. Let these kids grow before you start putting pressure on them like this. You see they have all of these arm guards and ankle guards, and it is like they are in the big leagues, and they are 12 years old. Let them grow, enjoy the game as little leaguers and quit worrying about what they do.”

Rose believes anyone involved in Little League baseball should take a long, hard look at how organizations are running their programs.

“I wasn’t babied when I was 12 years old,” Rose said. “I don’t think anyone involved in Little League baseball should baby their players. The focus should be on enjoying the game while learning how to play it properly and build toughness through the sport.”

And if that means getting coached hard, so be it.

“There is a big difference between a coach yelling at a kid and teaching them the difference between right and wrong on the baseball field,” Rose said. “I am not against coaches yelling at players, but I don’t want to see coaches yell at players to embarrass them in front of their peers to the point they want to quit. But there is a way to sternly correct something a player when he or she is doing something wrong.

"And when you get parents who yell at their kids from the stands for making an error, you just want to tell them to shut up, watch the game and let the kid learn from mistakes. That is the only way to grow.”

Somewhere along the line, Rose feels Major League Baseball has veered off of the tracks from when he played during the 60s, 70s and 80s. Of his major league record 4,256 career hits, just 160 of them were home runs.

“There is a lot of young talent out there, but most of it is centered around hitting home runs,” Rose said. “There isn’t much focused on hitting. I was scrolling through some stats the other day and noticed there were only four guys in one league hitting over .300 and five in the other. That is just nine players in both leagues hitting .300. That isn’t saying much about how today’s players are as pure hitters. And pitchers, all they do is give up home runs. Every night when I watch Sportscenter, it is like watching the Home Run Derby. It really is.”

In his day, Rose was a singles guy collecting an MLB record 3,215 of them during his career. He turned those into 2,165 runs scored and 198 steals with a .303 batting average in 14,053 at-bats. Rose was all about playing the game every single day the way he was taught. He did it 3,562 times in his 24-year MLB career averaging more than 148 games played per year.

All of which is unheard of in today's game here the home run is king.

“There are some very good players in baseball today,” Rose said. “Someone has convinced the players of today that if you want to make a lot of dollars, hit home runs. When I was playing, they convinced me to score runs. That is how you win games. You don’t win games if you don’t score runs. So you hit five home runs and they were all solo and get beat 7-5 by a team that didn’t hit any and scored by taking extra bases and manufacturing runs. Who cares if you hit that many home runs if you don’t win? Then you strike out with the bases loaded because you are thinking grand slam instead of hitting it in the gap and maybe bring in two or three runs and put yourself in scoring position.”

Too often, Rose is seeing players try to do things they simply aren't built to do like hit homers.

“That is the secret to hitting and any kind of success you have,” Rose said. “Find out what your assets are, find out what you can and can’t do on the field and when you find that out, go out and do the things you can do on a consistent basis. Don’t try to do something you can’t do. If you are not a home run hitter, don’t worry about swinging for the fences. If you don’t have a good arm, don’t try to be a pitcher. If you can’t catch a ball, don’t put everything you have into playing defense.

"You should always work on your shortcomings, but you should always excel in the things you do well on a daily basis. That is why you have a lineup in baseball with No. 1, No. 2 No. 3 hitters and so on. You deserve to hit where you are hitting.

"To me, people try to make baseball rocket science and baseball is a very simple game.”

jfurr@gannett.com

740-244-9934

X: @JakeFurr11

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Pete Rose set to speak at Ontario Baseball Fundraiser at Westbrook Country Club