Thousands of Wichita baseball fans show up for a chance to greet Pete Rose
At last, Pete Rose looked tired.
He had awakened before dawn to catch the first flight out of Las Vegas to Wichita, where his promotional duties with the Wichita Wingnuts would begin close to noon and last until well after the Wingnuts’ Sunday night game against Sioux Falls.
Fans lined up outside Lawrence-Dumont Stadium three hours before first pitch to catch a glimpse of baseball’s career hits leader, whose image and signature are still very much in demand.
But inside the stadium, Rose was sweltering under the unforgiving sun that was blaring temperatures close to triple-digits. He was tired, he admitted, but not of this life he has created for himself.
“It’s tiring right now, sure, but tomorrow I’ll be fine,” Rose said after letting a yawn escape. “So you lose a little bit of sleep, no big deal. There’s a lot of people worse off than me coming to the ball park every day.”
Coming to the ball park is what Rose loves to do. Baseball is what keeps the 74-year-old going, even after famously being banned from the game in 1989 for betting on baseball.
Wichita was the latest in 11 stops Rose has made this year, as he signed autographs before and during the game, coached first and third base for the Wingnuts, and had a meet-and-greet with fans after the Wingnuts fell 5-2 to Sioux Fall.
While it’s fair to note he is making money while doing these stops, his passion for the game is also obvious.
“I’m a baseball man, my whole life I’ve been that way,” Rose said. “You’ve got to love the game of baseball. The game has been very good to me, so if I can help one guy become a better player then I’ve accomplished something.”
Rose said his experiences with players and coaches — from the major leagues to the minors — has always been positive.
Wingnuts manager Kevin Hooper echoed that sentiment after the game on Sunday night, saying that the way Rose played the game still translates to this generation of athletes.
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no other way to play,” Hooper said. “That’s what I expect out of our guys. We’re going to run out ground balls, we’re going to play the game the right way. Hopefully the guys learned some things from Pete while he was here.”
It was an all-positive experience for Rose, who was cheered every time his name was announced and had some friendly banter with fans sitting along the first and third-base lines while he was coaching.
It’s like this wherever he goes, including the long line of fans who stood in line in the outfield concourse during the game to wait for Rose’s autograph.
Two of those fans were Jared Friesen, 35, and his brother Micah, 33, who grew up in Goddard with their father, Brad, preaching to them to follow the way Rose played. On Sunday, with each wearing their own customized Rose t-shirt, they met their idol.
“Growing up in a farm in Kansas, we learned early on if you were going to make it in sports you were going to have to work very hard,” Micah said. “My dad always taught us to run everything out like we were Pete Rose. Watching him play every single game like that, it just makes you want to do everything in life like that — all out.”
Rose doesn’t come to these appearances to discuss his ongoing case to be reinstated in Major League Baseball and be eligible for the Hall of Fame.
But when asked if he is content with his life — if he ever tires of those early-morning flights, those endless appearances across the country, all of those signatures — it sounds like Rose might be talking about something else too.
“The life we live in, you’ve got to learn from your mistakes and let it go,” Rose said. “Everybody makes mistakes, some bigger than others, but the smart guy learns from his mistakes and carries on with his life. That’s the way I am.”
This story was originally published July 19, 2015 at 11:39 PM with the headline "Thousands of Wichita baseball fans show up for a chance to greet Pete Rose."