On Deck For The Big Knock

It is not until after three, after all the Orioles and Blue Jays and White Sox and Red Sox have gone to bed, that Rose capitulates.

"Good night," he says.

But we know better....

FIVE A.M.—THE LONG WALK

Could Rose be happier? Wheaties still crunchy, White and Red Sox dancing on the dish, history knocking on the door. He is content. Some might find Rose extravagantly one-dimensional, but Rose does all right. He never pretended to attend Swarthmore, anyhow. He grew up on the wrong side of Cincinnati, never went to college, rarely reads a novel and zaps PBS as fast as it comes on. "And he has the most street sense of anybody I know," says his attorney, Reuven Katz. "He knows who he is."

Indeed, Rose will be a first-ballot inductee into the Hall of Fame, and possibly the first unanimous choice, because he followed his one simple motto: "Be yourself." And what Rose is, above all things, is his father's son.

"All I am," he says, "is a young American boy who knew what he could do and what he couldn't do and did it for a long, long period of time. I did the dos more often than I did the don'ts and I didn't mind the dedication.... I'm the next generation of my father with an opportunity to show what he could've done."

Forget cash or clout or Cobb or cars. What drives Pete is Harry. "I was in the barbershop, getting my hair cut," Rose says. "I remember getting the call, but I can't remember who was on the other end of the line. Whoever it was said, 'Your dad died.' And I said, 'No, you mean my mom.' My mom had just about everything wrong with her. Her heart was real bad. But the person said, 'No, your dad.' And I couldn't believe it. I don't know why, but I finished getting my haircut. It didn't hit me until I saw him in the funeral home. That's when it hit me, that he was gone."

At the end of every season, Rose drives to the cemetery and makes the walk to his father's grave.

"He took me once," Carol says. "He gets to talking about him and sometimes I see tears come up in his eyes. That's the only time he ever gets very emotional. I think he misses his father very much. He goes there every year just to say thanks."