5-14-25 Willie with Marty Brennaman

is pathetic. It's cool to have a guy die about six months ago, and now the memories light the corners of my mind, and let's face it, I want to get the perspective of the great Hall of Famer Marty Brenneman. Of course, tonight the first pitch is seven fourteen PM tonight, White Sox, a little Dollo on the Mount, and Marty's going to be the MC starting I think about six thirty and Marty Brownman and welcome again to the Bill

Cunningham Show. Can you tell the American people, the forty thousand fans accumulating and congregating to go to the Great American Ballpark? What time to get there? I would think a little bit early. And then secondly, what's going to happen in between six thirty and seven fourteen.

World Championship years. At six thirty or thereabouts, I will oversee Q and A with Barry Larkin, with Ken Griffy Senior, with Eric Davis, and with George Foster, and basically the questions are going to deal with Pete Rose the player,

Pete Rose the teammate, and Pete Rose the manager. And those four guys really present a great cross section because you know, Larkin, Larkin grew up watching Rose in the Big Red Machine teams play, and then eventually Pete became Berry's first manager in the Big leagues, and then Griffy was a teammate of his and later a coach, and then Foster, of course, is one of the main stays of those great clubs in the middle seventies and playing with Pete and Eric Davis was both a teammate and

a guy who Pete managed when Pete was player manager of the ball club. So that's a good that's a good mix. Then they're going to have I know, the Western Hills I don't know, it's lee club or a singing group from Western Hills High School where Pete went. We'll sing the national anthem. Members of the family will

throw out the first stitch. There will be a fourteen second, you know, a fourteen second memory to commemorate or to think about your own personal thought of what Pete meant to the city and what he meant to this game. And then of course seven fourteen again the fourteen comes up his number to kick off the ballgame.

of the game of baseball. So they didn't hesitate using Rows as a player to uplift the image of the game and the eyes of the fans and many thousands that went through the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown every year and every day, but yet he was not a lot good enough to be in. And I believe me when I tell you, going back to the day that he was suspended from the game, I agreed one hundred percent with it. I went full circle over on the

on the ensuing years. But I agreed with it because that's the only rule in baseball that's on the wall of every clubhouse in Major League Baseball, all thirty all thirty franchises. And he broke that rule, and he should have been suspended, but not to the extent that he ended up being suspended. And the hypocrisy of it now is that within a matter of months. I mean, this

is the most transparent thing I've ever seen. There's no element of cloak and dagger here trying to hide something, because as you said, it was a matter of months he passes, and now they announced that he's off the ineligible list. I'm I'm just not a big fan. Granted,

he should have been suspended. Secondly, and quite honestly, I do believe this, And I told the Bill the day he was called the Voice Palm Beach in nineteen eighty nine to meet with Peter you Barrot and Bart your Moody Commissioner nationally President, and they laid out all the evidence they had, and the evidence was irrefutable. You couldn't there was And I think that had he laid his he fell on the mercy of the court and said, everything you got is true, I am guilty as hell.

He would have been suspended for a period of time and we wouldn't even be talking about the possibility of him going into Hall of Fame today because he would have been in it years ago. But I think Pete made him mad because in face of overwhelming evidence that he did do it and his continued insistence that he didn't, they finally said somewhat vindictively. And I know they would never admit this because there's no not an ounce of

vindictiveness in Rob Manfred's body. Okay, you're going to continually lie to us. We're going to show you why you shouldn't. And I really believe that's the way that whole thing. I told him, I said, had you admitted it the first day they confronted you with, you know, it's unfortunate the way things played out.

was the lowest point of Pete Rose's life? And he related to me a conversation he had with Pete in which in October of nineteen ninety the last glory run of the Reds hopefully they'll be one soon, but it doesn't look like it, in which the Reds were just taking apart the Oakland A's and Pete was in a prison and a little bit of an area where other federal inmates were in Marion, and Pete was saying, well, I would have done this, I would have done that.

Look at this, look at that. He said. Near the end, he went back to his to sell and he laid in bed trying to get the wrap up of the game Benziger's catch on the transistor radio and he couldn't quite catch it inside the federal prison, and he said, Pete Rose looked at the ceiling in October as the Reds clinched in Oakland. You had a magnificent call of that occurring. And he said Pete's mind was just collapsing around the idea that he saw Jethrow he saw Lark,

and he saw Benziger, he saw it Rio. By the way, Jose Rio termed sixty years old yesterday talk about time Fly and Pete said, that was the lowest point of my life. Can you imagine if you go from September the eleventh, nineteen eighty five to about four years later August ninth, or maybe October of nineteen ninety think of the road that Pete Rose traveled from forty one ninety two to federal prison staring at the ceiling in the dark, trying to get the call of that game.

of that. He was Bud Seelely's inside guy. Every time Sea League had something that was sensitive at any level relative to the game, the first person he would confide in was Joe Morgan. Joe had incredible power that people never even knew about. And he was also the best friend that any human being could ever possibly have. And I told Pete a million times everybody should be privileged to have a friend like you had in Joe Morgan.

And every time Joe got this meeting almost certain to take place, Pete did or said something that killed it all. And you know, Pete, my beautiful wife, who is a very bright girl as a saying, nobody will do more damage to you than you'll do to yourself. And Pete was probably the foster boy for that, because if you stuck a microphone in his face and you talk to him live long enough, he's going to say something that

will hurt him. And those occasions that Joe had set up meetings with Bud Seely, on both occasions Pete did something that angered the commissioner and he called him off.

fine sales executive of ours. We'll see about that, because Kirchin said the following He said, I've been on that Veterans Committee and it meets, by the way, sometime in the middle of twenty twenty seven to announce the results in twenty in December of twenty twenty seven, which is what two and a half years away, and he said, there's sixteen of us. He said, and they're all Hall of famers or individuals like me or General Manager Tony Perez is on the Veterans Committee. I don't know if

he still lives. He was, And Tim said, look, I'm inclined to vote yes, but I know that the sentiment is against Pete and it takes seventy five percent of the vote, twelve of sixteen. I'm inclined to vote yes. And then he related a conversation he'd briefly had with Frank Robinson. Statue ten years here, fabulous Hall of famer and Frank Robinson I said to Tim, this is years ago before Frank passed away, that you know, Pete Rose

should never be in the Hall of Fame. And to me, I thought, Frank Robinson veda Pinson, Pete Rose, you know, right there together because coming up in sixty three, sixty four, sixty five. But for those who say, well this means Pete's going to be in the Hall of Fame, they meet every three years, and what is your sense, I guess as a Hall of Fame or you could be on the Veterans Committee. At some point they asked eminent individuals of the game. I know what your answer would

be would be yes. But for those who say, okay, it's a short step. We will be announced tonight that Pete Rose is in the Hall of no Explain the process, the difficulties Pete Rose would have in front of that committee.

that he bet on baseball. But you know, maybe it's not going to be the walk along the Primrose Lane that we all thought it was going to be. If these people still feel and you know the guys that when I went in in two thousand and it's hard to believe it's twenty five years ago, but you know, they were all up in arms because they'd gotten win that I was going to say something about Pete and

betch came to me. Johnny came to me the day before the induction ceremony said they don't shoot the messenger. I said, okay. He said, Bob Feller and Ralph Kinner have both said that if you mentioned Pete, they're going to get up the walk off the stage. And I said, Johnny, go back and tell them how to give a damn what they did. If they wanted to be stripped naked in defiance of what I said, than the hell with them.

And the next day I made a comment about Pete very assertively that he should be in the Hall of Fame, and moved on. They were concerned over the fact that this the year before, when Mike Schmidt went in in nineteen ninety nine, that he went on for five minutes about how Pete should be in the Hall of Fame, and that angered the dickens out of them, and so but I did what I was going to do, and nobody got up and walked off the stage. But those were the two guys that were that carried the torch

of defiance against Pete ever being in. Propeller and Ralph. Obviously both of them are gone now, and maybe they are people like Robbie who was also gone, But maybe there are more that we don't know about that are just as opposed to Pete being in the Hall of Fame today as they were back then.

of life, they reserve judgment on you. They don't jump on your bandwagon, but they don't get off of it quickly. They wait and see how you can induct yourself, and once they decide that you are one of them. It's like, if you and I were brothers, I can call you anything. I want to call you the most vile, but the guy who's a friend of ours standing there, he better not do it. And so this is kind of off

the beaten path. But you know, Pete was born and raised here, and Pete people prided themselves when this guy was when he had proven himself to be an outstanding, elite Major League Baseball player, and he continued to knock the doors down on records and he ultimately became the all time hit king. People loved that, and people loved the fact that he went to West Hills High School and he was born on that side of town, and so there was nothing that he could do that would

diminish their love and affection for him. All through the gambling thing and anything else that had come into play that was a negative factor in peace life. People would accept the fact and acknowledge the fact, but at the same time, they would always quick to say, it doesn't make any difference. He's one of us, and we love Pete Rose, and I think that basically is what it's all about here, and they'll continue to love his memory

as much as they love the person. He was just a special individual who had a lot of warts, but those warts were accepted by anybody who crossed paths with him for the most part.

Pete as far as not letting them in. It's pathetic. It's cruel to do this right after he dies. It just doesn't sit well. But Marty, thank you. And I fear we're going to do this again at some point. It seems like they probably we will. Bill all right, Marty, thank you so much. Thank you.