BY ANY OTHER NAME
It is that time of year. You can feel it in the warming zephyrs, smell it in the aroma of the lucious green grass, and sense it’s touch your deep down soul. This is a story of baseball. It is a story of history and the beginning a fascinating story and in the end a sad, sad story of life.
It was the summer of 1960. The Cincinnati Reds were looking to build a better ball club. The river city club had last won a pennant and a world series twenty years prior. The South was usually a good place to start looking for unknown, raw talent. So, the Reds turned to the site of one of their former farm team, the Dublin Green Sox, who joined the Georgia State League in 1949 and played in Lovett Park until 1953. The Green Sox moved to the Pittsburgh Pirates’ chain of teams until their exit after the 1956 season. Dublin saw a return to minor league baseball in 1958, when the Dublin Orioles, managed by future Hall of Famer, Earl Weaver, played for just a single season. During a three-year hiatus from baseball, the sandy grass field at the southeastern corner of Kellam Road and Marcus Street was vacant, except for an occasional rodeo, outdoor concert, or semi-pro pick up game.
The Reds organized a regional tryout and training camp in the Southeast. Hopefuls from around the Southeast came, so did a few from the Midwest, including one nineteen-year-old ball player out of Western Hills in Covedale. Full of unbridled determination, the little bulldog Chuck Edwards loved baseball - although his coaches gave up on him as a “too small” running back in football.
Held back for a fifth year of high school, Chuck’s only choice was to start playing in an amateur league, which he dominated. His uncle Buddy, a seasoned baseball scout, plead his case for his theretofore ignored prospect nephew. Chuck was invited to the travel south to Dublin for the tryout at a training camp held at Lovett Park.
It was during that time in Dublin when Ed Libatore, a reliable and trusted major league scout of 55 years, saw a short kid standing out in the crowd on the first day of the camp.
LOVETT PARK, KELLAM ROAD, DUBLIN, GEORGIA, CA. 1960
“I hit him a lot of ground balls. His glove looked as if it had been made by Bethlehem Steel. His intangibles compensated for what he lacked in ability,” Libatore told John Steadman, of the Baltimore Sun, in the summer of 1998.
Impressed with what he saw that day, Libatore relented to Uncle Buddy’s pleas and signed Chuck to a contract with the Reds. Getting used to professional pitching, Chuck batted only .277 with Geneva of the New York - Penn League. In 1961, Chuck moved south to Tampa under the direction of Johnny Vandermeer, world famous for his back to back no-hitters, and known in Dublin circles as the manager of the Douglas, Georgia Trojans of the Georgia State League in 1956. Chuck drew the enthusiastic, head turning, stares of the Red’s management when he got a hit in every three at bats. Chuck rocketed up the line to join the Macon Peaches, of the Class A Sally League in 1962.
It was during that year that I saw my first real life, sure enough, professional baseball game. My father, Dale Thompson, known in Dublin as a amateur baseball coach and former semi-pro baseball player, was given a pair of tickets to a Peaches’s game at the historic Luther Williams Field. In those carefree days, my grandfather left me by the gate to await my father’s arrival following a banquet held in a fairground building.
Some 59 years later, I still remember walking into Heaven as my father said that we were going to be sitting in the box seats next to one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. Today, I think my father pushed his way next to the seat of the the story-telling baseball legend, who was the guest speaker at the banquet earlier in the evening.
LUTHER WILLIAMS PARK,
MACON, GEORGIA
Daddy introduced me to the tall, graying, skinny man who was one of baseball’s greatest world series pitcher. They called him “Lefty.” His close friends called him “Goofy” Gomez. I remember others leaning in to hear his stories.
By now, old baseball fans will know the true identity of the Peaches’ second sacker. In his first game in the major leagues, the Red’s regular second baseman was hurt. Chuck sprinted out of the dugout to take Don Blasingame’s place. And, as they always say, the rest is history.
To paraphrase William Shakespeare, “By another name, a rose is still a rose”. “Chuck Edwards,” adored or hated by millions of major league fans, was in fact Peter Edward “Charlie Hustle” Rose, who will go down in history as playing his first professional baseball in Dublin, Georgia, a remarkable feat which compares with another remarkable feat of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who made his first pubic speaking debut ten blocks north and closer into town in 1944.
Rose played in the big leagues from 1963 to 1986, and managed the Cincinnati Reds from 1984 to 1989. The all-time leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053), singles (3,215), and outs (10,328), “Charlie Hustle” won three World Series rings, three batting titles, one Most Valuable Player Award, two Gold Gloves, and the Rookie of the Year Award, in addition to 17 All-Star appearances at an unequaled five positions (second baseman, left fielder, right fielder, third baseman, and first baseman).
My brother Henry and I were in Fulton County Stadium on July 31, 1978, pulling for the hapless Braves as we always had done. Rose got a hit that night to run his hitting streak to 44 to tie him with “Wee Willie” “Hit ‘em where they aint” Keeler for the all time longest hitting streak in the history of the National League. Yeah! The streak ended the next game.
These accolades alone were enough to unanimously enshrine Rose into Baseball's Hall of Fame. But it was Rose's own selfish malfeasance which caused him to be permanently penalized from baseball amidst credible accusations that he bet on his own teams' baseball games.
The last time my son Scotty and I saw Pete Rose, he was honored at the 1999 World Series game as a member of Major League Baseball’s greatest living team. All the living greats were gathered in Turner Field: Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Henry Aaron, Willie May, and another two dozen or so Hall of Famers and several more current players who were yet to finish their careers and be inducted into the Hall in Cooperstown.
Of course, Aaron and Ted Williams were honored with long, standing ovations. Ironically, the man who was banned from the game he so dearly loved, who drew an equal or almost equal, deafening round of applause. They were true fans of the game, including myself who disliked Rose for his offensive and defensive plays beating the Braves quite often. As for me, love him or hate him, it was that cool spring evening in Macon, Georgia, when Pete Rose and Lefty Gomez enticed me into the game of baseball, a moment which will stay with me until my dying day.
Comments
Thanks Scott