By his stats alone, Pete Rose was one of Major League Baseball’s greats. But in 1989, he was banned for life after an investigation found he was betting on his team’s games during his time as manager of the Cincinnati Reds. In the years since, he’s launched campaigns lobbying for a reversal, but offered little by way of contrition. At 83, after all this time, he might be incapable of it. Even so, the four-part HBO documentary “Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose” is a searching look for one man’s conscience.
Integrity may be little more than a useful fantasy when it comes to the corporate interests of major sports leagues. I’m always interested in the ways that same fantasy shapes how we feel about individual athletes, especially the most talented, when reality paints a more complicated picture. A nickname like Charlie Hustle is a nod to all the qualities we associate with hard work and initiative. Rose would argue his performance on the field bears that out. He’s less inclined to think through the ways his off-field choices embody the less savory definition of “hustle,” as well.
If the modern era of celebrity documentaries has been defined by glossy image management and hagiography, filmmaker Mark Monroe achieves something more absorbing and tension-filled simply because Rose is such a dodgy and unreliable narrator. His story is a tragedy, but one of his own making, and you get the feeling that his head is filled with gusts of hot air, swirling with ego, self-delusion and sadness. What a portrait. All the same, it is also profoundly weird that Monroe doesn’t address the prevalence of sports gambling — and the league’s recent involvement with it — until well into the final episode.
Rose’s career in baseball began in 1963 and he was the rare player who spent most of it with his hometown club (born and raised in Cincinnati). He had the blue-collar persona of a grinder that made him a fan favorite. His confidence could slip into arrogance but he was also funny and charming. After breaking a record for base hits, he stood by, fresh off the game and still in uniform, awaiting a call from President Ronald Reagan. It became a comedy of errors when he was repeatedly put on hold, but Rose kept it light and offered up jokes: “I’ll give him my home number,” he shrugged.
So that was one side of his personality, a spinner of yarns and always good for a quote. Like many athletes, he was probably something of an adrenaline junkie: “You play sports for one reason. You don’t play for exercise, you play to win.”
He was also an inveterate liar. Maybe that’s why Monroe is unable to push his subject to think more deeply about why or how gambling became so central to his life. Rose takes umbrage when he’s compared to the 1919 Black Sox Scandal and Shoeless Joe Jackson: “Joe Jackson was a great player, OK? But Joe Jackson took money to throw a baseball game in the World Series. I bet on my own team to win.” Rose insists there’s a difference.
Even 35 years later, he’s too squirrelly, too begrudging to fully come clean. Occasionally Monroe catches him in outright lies. There were other allegations in the investigation concerning statutory rape and possibly owing money to the mob, meaning “essentially, they own the manager,” which is how the MLB’s investigator put it. Rose also served five months in a minimum security prison in Marion in downstate Illinois for cheating on his taxes. He insists the ruling handed down by MLB was supposed to be brief as well — a one-year suspension — and it becomes yet another baffling disconnect from reality.
Regarding the statutory rape allegation, Rose says the girl was “within the range of her age, so who gives a (expletive).” To which Monroe replies: “Your lawyers filed documents saying that she was of legal age at that time, but pretty young, 16.”
“First of all,” Rose says, “I don’t ever remember going out with a 16-year-old. Eighteen, yes. But don’t forget, I’m not 50 or 60 when I’m going out with the 18-year-old. There’s probably a lot of guys in this room that are 28-30 that date 18 and 19-year-olds.”
(Monroe isn’t miked, which means every time he asks a question — which is often — it’s a faint voice from off-camera, a choice that suggests a lack of forethought about how these interviews were going to unfold.)
It’s clear Rose hopes to sway sentiment in his favor and finally get his shot at the Baseball Hall of Fame, which can only happen if the lifetime ban is lifted. That is unlikely. “He’s never wrong, he’s never going to apologize, he’s never going to back down, it’s always somebody else’s fault,” is how someone puts it. “He is the hero of his own mind.”
What’s behind Rose’s compulsion at this point? His accomplishments stand, regardless of whether he is in the Hall of Fame or not. You can understand or even sympathize with his disappointment. It so obviously weighs on his mind. But as one sports writer puts it: “It matters if the guys who are controlling the outcome of the game are betting and it matters if they’re betting on themselves or their opponents.”
Still, there’s hypocrisy at play here. In a clip, current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred talks about the ways “sports gaming can be an important source of fan engagement.” Is it wishful thinking to believe everything will remain above board and scandal-free? It’s conspicuous that Monroe never asks Rose his thoughts about any of it.
Wearing a shirt with “hit king” stitched on the collar, Rose ultimately comes across as sadly aggrieved and more than a bit lonely. This isn’t how he envisioned his golden years. Other guys have done the same or worse, is the subtext that comes through, they just never got caught — and he thinks it’s unfair that he is being held to any standard at all.
There is no wisdom in hindsight. No long-delayed understanding of the sowing/reaping aphorism. Only a desire to be celebrated one last time with an induction to the Hall of Fame. He remains Charlie Hustle to the end, even if he might be happier accepting that his mistakes are too big to wave away. They’re also what make him human and complex — a man filled with regrets he refuses to admit even exist.
“Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose” — 3 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: The first two episodes premiere at 8 p.m. Wednesday on HBO, followed by the final two episodes at 8 p.m. on Thursday (and streaming on Max)
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.
