Singles weekend

Rose finally joins Williams in Hall of Fame ... sort of

Pete Rose was never a Ted Williams kind of hitter, slapping all those singles to the opposite field. Pure and simple, Rose just didn't have enough pop for Teddy Ballgame.

The evidence is there in black and white. When Williams and Jim Prime wrote the 1996 book The Ted Williams Hit List, a ranking of the top 25 hitters of all time, guys like Ralph Kiner and Chuck Klein made the cut. But Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader, was nowhere to be found.

So it's a bit surprising that this weekend down in Hernando, Fla., friends of Williams are honoring Rose with induction into the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame. Rose finds himself in a class with Williams, who didn’t want to be inducted while he was alive, Dom DiMaggio, Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn.

Prime is the guy who nominated Rose, though even he admits fishing buddy Williams wasn’t a big fan of Charlie Hustle. Yes, he appreciated Rose's hard-nosed play and passion for the game. But as a hitter, Rose got only honorable mention in Hit List, along with the likes of Goose Goslin, Dick Allen and Hack Wilson.

Ted Williams' Top 25 Hitters  1. Babe Ruth  2. Lou Gehrig  3. Jimmie Foxx  4. Rogers Hornsby  5. Joe DiMaggio  6. Ty Cobb  7. Stan Musial  8. Shoeless Joe Jackson  9. Hank Aaron  10. Willie Mays  11. Hank Greenberg  12. Mickey Mantle  13. Tris Speaker  14. Al Simmons  15. Johnny Mize  16. Mel Ott  17. Harry Heilmann  18. Frank Robinson  19. Mike Schmidt  20. Ralph Kiner   21. Duke Snider  22. Harmon Killebrew  23. Willie McCovey  24. Chuck Klein  25. Josh Gibson   Source: The Ted Williams Hit List (1996) by Ted Williams and Jim Prime.

“He was a bear-down son-of-a-bitch, and I’d want him on my team," Williams wrote in the book. "He was a great all-around player and you’ve got to give him high marks for his hustle and attitude. But frankly, I didn’t like his hitting. Rose had no power. You know what [Mickey] Mantle said about Rose. He said if he hit like that he’d wear a skirt. ... He was the first singles/doubles hitter to make the big bucks and that was his trademark."

Nevertheless, Rose's 4,256 hits are more than anybody else on the planet. Can't ignore that. And Boggs and Gwynn were never mistaken for power hitters, either. Of course, neither were they kicked out of baseball for gambling, a cloud that's hung over Rose since 1989.

Prime can’t recall Williams offering an opinion on Rose's lifetime ban, but he notes that one of Williams' final causes was lobbying to get Shoeless Joe Jackson -- banned for his role in the 1919 Black Sox scandal -- eligible for the Hall of Fame.

Prime thinks baseball has followed the proper, conservative course with Rose, believing he should be reinstated only if he admits to gambling and apologizes for it.

But that's a matter for commissioner Bud Selig and baseball to decide. The Hernando shrine isn’t caught up in ethics or legal pitfalls. It's focus is the fans, a good number of whom remain sympathetic to Rose.

So when the Hit King drew the loudest ovation at last year's World Series during a ceremony honoring the game’s 10 greatest moments, the light went on for Dave McCarthy, executive director of Ted Williams Museum, and Claudia Williams, daughter of the Hall of Famer.

“He came on the field and the whole park is screaming, ‘Hall of Fame, Hall of Fame,'" said McCarthy, a former New Hampshire State Police major who provided security for Williams for many years.

“Hey, we have a museum that’s dedicated to fans. They should have some say in this. I’m not a Cincinnati Reds fan or a Pete Rose fan. I’ll tell you, Carl Yastrzemski is my guy. But people come in here every day asking, ‘Why isn’t Pete in here?'"

Curiously, Rose won't even be there this weekend. Maybe he’s been advised to take his carnival act off the road, to stay out of sight while Selig continues to consider his reinstatement. Or maybe he has a weekend commitment he can't get out of (there's been talk of a golf tournament appearance in Los Angeles).

But it’s odd to find Charlie Hustle, who sets up shop every August on a sidewalk in Cooperstown, N.Y., a no-show at his own Hall of Fame induction, even if it’s only to a modest facility 90 miles north of Tampa.

“That’s too bad," Prime said. “The ideal scenario would be for him to use this as a forum to say exactly what happened."

I guess we’ll just have to wait.

Mike Fish is a senior writer for SI.com.

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