Pete Rose - Play Hungry: The Making of a Baseball Player

My dad taught me that nothing mattered more than winning. He instilled that in me from when I was a scrawny little kid following him around from game to game watching him amaze everyone in Cincinnati as one of the greatest athletesand winnersany of them had ever seen. Dad was scientific in his study of sports and his commitment to learning and doing everything you could to become a better competitor. He had no time for talk like the old Grantland Rice line Its not whether you win or lose, its how you play the game. That was for losers. You might be hurt. You might be having a bad day. But you always looked for a way to gain an edge and you were always focused on winning.

Thats why no number means more to me than 1,972, which is the number of Major League Baseball games I played when my team won. That, by a long shot, is the most ever by any player. I loved everything about being an athlete, from practicing to getting ready for a game to playing the game, but most of all I loved competition and I loved winning. I love baseball now as much as I always did. Nothing that has happened to me could ever change that, including being banned from baseball for life. Or having to accept that I screwed up my shot at the Hall of Fameand if, despite everything, I do end up in the Hall one day, it will probably be after Ive joined my dad and my mom and moved on from this world.

Listen, there are two things Id change if I had my life to do over again. The first is I wouldnt have bet on baseball. Of course Id love to have that one back, but there are no do overs in life. You know the other thing Id change? I wish I could go back and grab the boy version of myself by the shoulders and give him a good shakehe wouldnt have minded that much, he was a tough kidand persuade him somehow to try to be a better student. I just didnt like school. I liked sports, and I was raised to focus on sports. The only interest I had in school was trying to stay eligible so I could keep playing sports.

Ill be gone soon enough. Out of the game we call life. Ill leave behind quite a few records. Ill leave behind a legacy of someone who worked as hard at the game as anyone out there, and someone who was as fierce a competitor as anyone who played the game. Anything I ever accomplished grew out of trying to live up to the example of my dad, who was the one man in my life I ever idolized.

I loved Babe Ruth. I loved Jim Brown. But I idolized my dad. I know I didnt always set the best example. Ive made my mistakes. But I was lucky in life, and I want to use this chance to show that I know how lucky I was. I was lucky because I had a dad who was there in my life to show me the way. This book is my way of thanking my dad, and reminding people that no relationships matter in life as much as the first ones you have, with your mother and father. Being there for people counts.

I heard my dads voice somewhere in the back of my head every time I laced up my spikes and went out there to do battle. That was true when I was a kid playing with the other kids at Boldface Park, and it was true long after my dad had died, way too young, and I was out there battlin Gibson or Marichal or Seaver. That was the ultimate secret to my success: I always played for my dad and for myself and for love of the game, which to me were all wrapped up together, those three. I played my ass off when I was a kid in Cincinnati and I played my ass off when I was an up-and-coming star at Crosley Field and I played my ass off when Id moved on to other teams in other cities. I was never trying to impress anyone. I was just trying to live up to that fiery love of the game and of competition that my father passed on to me when I was just a runt of a kid wishing I could be like him. I played hard because that was what made me feel alive. That was what made me feel like myself. I played hard, harder than anyone, because that was what made me feel close to my dad, even years after wed buried him.

PART 1

GROWING UP