Originally posted on February 26, 2014
Pete Rose. Everyone has an opinion. The guy showed up at the yard, saw his name on the lineup card, and stepped up to the plate more times than anyone else in the history of baseball. There's something to be said about that. Think about it. He played more baseball than any other player ever has. We all know that Rose finished his career with more hits (2,156) than any other player in history - with 2,150 of them being singles, (kidding, but you're not stat checking).
In that quest to stay on the field, Rose, (his quest for Cobb's 4,191 not withstanding), had to do some desperate shit. One of those things was to sign a 1-year deal with the Montreal Expos. He did this in 1984, after the Phillies, who had reached the Series in '83 - with Rose hitting .245 - didn't resign him. Nor did anyone else want the 42 year old singles-hitter. Rose ended up competing for a job with Montreal.
What happened next was completely predictable. Rose played hard and racked up his 4000th hit, making he and Ty Cobb the only members of the 4,000 hit club before he ended up as the player-manager for Cincinnati, and you know the rest. Other than that hit, Pete Rose as a Montreal Expo was only as cool as 1984 would permit. The coolness came from the uniform and what the small collection of WAAAAY overvalued baseball cards provided. That uniform - home AND away, was sweet. I can't quite quantify how legendary Pete Rose was to grade school kids (ok, me), and card collectors at the time, but there was simply something majestic about Rose as an Expo.
