On Deck For The Big Knock

Rose isn't apologetic about being rich, either. Nor about being proud, which gives him the reputation of a statistics monger. Wrong, Decimal Breath. Rose is a baseball monger. Any number that can be associated with baseball, Rose can spit out as if he were a dot-matrix printer. Rose knows the 34 major and National League records he holds. And, yes, he might refresh you as to which 40-year-old led the NL in hits in 1981 (Pete, with the Phillies); who played 23 years with only one ride on the disabled list (Pete, 21 days); which singles hitter took Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer and Catfish Hunter over the wall in postseason games (Pete). But he can also recite how White Sox righties do against Red Sox lefties.

You think he's up at 5 a.m. to watch the sunrise?

TWELVE NOON—THE OLD BLOCK

Face the Nation: "Pete, this record must be pretty important to you. You named your son after Ty Cobb, didn't you?"

Rose: "Well, I named him Tyler Edward Rose. My name is Peter Edward Rose. I can honestly say if I was chasing some guy named Harry, I wouldn't have named him Harry, I can say that."

Actually, Rose is chasing some guy named Harry. Rose's father was Harry, but he didn't like the name, either. Growing up in Cincinnati, Harry was fond of a vegetable-cart horse named Pete. Each day when that horse came around, Harry would climb on and refuse to climb off, so they called him Pete.

By day, Rose's father was a farsighted bank employee who suffered headaches after long hours adding figures. But when he got off the bus at night and swept up his son, Harry Rose went through a metamorphosis. Bartleby became Achilles. As an amateur boxer, he fought as a flyweight under the name Pee Wee Sams. As a sturdy semipro halfback and defensive back, he played until he was 42. He was a member of the original Cincinnati Bengals, who played against teams like the Chicago Bears. When Cincinnati Post columnist Pat Harmon retired in August after more than 34 years on the job, he named Rose's father the most remarkable athlete he had seen. "He was," says Rose. "I've seen a lot of football, but my father was the best player I ever saw."

Once, Harry Rose broke his hip on a kickoff, then crawled downfield to try to make a tackle. Another night he came off the field with a knot on his arm the size of a Softball. He took a handkerchief, filled it with ice, wrapped it around his arm, went back into the game and made an interception on the next play. After the games, win or lose, he would run hills while young Peter watched. "I didn't need to read about dedication," Rose once wrote. "I lived with it."

No wonder Harry Rose became his son's idol—and then some. "He took me to all the games," says Pete. Says Rose's mother, La Verne, "Pete would be in the car before his father could say, 'Pete, you want to go?' "

When Pete became an athlete, his father rarely gave praise. "My dad never talked in terms of individuals," Rose says. "He always talked about teams." But when Pete was not around, Harry talked about one individual—Pete. "Once, when Peter was about four, he and his father were playing baseball in the backyard," Pete's mother recalls. "Peter hit a ball that cracked a window. I tried to get it fixed one day, but Big Pete says to me, 'Don't you dare!' He wouldn't let me fix it. He wanted to show people how far Peter could hit a ball."