On Deck For The Big Knock

Still, it is a wonder Rose ever gets a hit. So far today, he's done interviews in his office, around the batting cage, in the dugout, in the tunnel to the clubhouse, in the clubhouse and in his office again. The last reporter leaves at 7:10 p.m., 25 minutes before the first pitch. But when Rose steps in against Ryan at 7:45, that hunch looks as foreboding as ever. Not a bad moment in baseball history. How many times does a guy with 4,000 strikeouts face a guy with 4,000 hits?

With one ball and one strike, Ryan, the ultimate speed freak, throws a straight changeup that dupes Rose so badly he resembles a glazed twist.

"Where'd you get that?" he hollers at Ryan, who shrugs. They both smile.

"He doesn't have enough stuff that he has to learn to throw a straight change?" Rose asks his unofficial assistant manager, George Scherger, after missing another for strike three. "Can you believe that? The Express? With a straight change?"

Carol and Ty arrive in the fourth inning and Rose makes note of it. They always sit in the same seats—four rows back of home plate. Rose's father was not that easy to track. Superstitious, he'd sit down and if Pete didn't get a knock, he'd move. Pete would always find him again, but it took some doing. After the game, Carol and Ty will come down to the family lounge just outside the clubhouse, but Rose's father would rarely visit. "Only twice did he ever come in the clubhouse," Rose says. "Once was the day we won the 1970 pennant, and the other time was for a SPORTS ILLUSTRATED picture. Otherwise, he'd always go home."

Just as in the old days, Harry Rose was not easily swayed to show approval of his son. "If I'd go 3 for 4, he'd say, 'Did you have something on your mind that third time up? You didn't run to first very hard.' And, you know, he'd be right. I'd think back on it and usually I did have something else on my mind."

Tonight, Rose goes 1 for 4. Ryan strikes him out twice, but Rose dumps a bunt down third in the seventh inning off Jeff Calhoun, and while the Astros are deciding who should have the honor of playing it, Rose hustles it out for a hit.

Signs and lights and tote boards and typewriters and Magic Markers start a symphony of Cincinnati celebration as all across the city, 28s become 27s. One of the bat boys asks the umpire for the ball and squirrels it away. The Reds have been keeping every ball since 4,107. Won't be long now till The Big Knock.

In the clubhouse, though, Rose is not smiling. The Reds beat Ryan 4-1 to keep the Dodgers' lead at 5½ games, but now Rose must do the only thing at a ball park he dreads.

Alan Knicely, his backup catcher, has to be shipped to Denver to make room for pitcher Jay Tibbs. Rose hates this one more than most because Knicely is the second-hardest-working player on the team. How can he, the Dead End Kid, give up on a guy who is trying, as Rose would put it, "like hell"? Besides, Knicely makes only $45,000—not bad for most people, but Knicely has extra expenses because his son, Brad, has cerebral palsy. "Knicely lost money playing baseball last year," Rose says. Rose is so ill at ease with failure that he always requests that Reds general manager Bill Bergesch be in the office with him when he breaks bad news. "Otherwise," says Rose, "I'd be in here talking to the kid all night."