Pete Rose Books

"A Blood Red Rose" is a wickedly funny look at the inside forces of Hollywood and a page-turning mystery all rolled into one. Buck's hero, screenwriter Pete Castle, is asked to write a script for `Murder!' - a television reality program - recreating the 40-year-old unsolved murder of movie idol Jock Newhall. During a rehearsal for the program, Pete's friend and producer Clark Kester is killed in exactly the same way on the site of the original murder. It's up to Pete to solve both murders before someone else turns up dead.

Buck, a former AP columnist who's covered every aspect of the entertainment industry, takes the reader on a journey that weaves through the Hollywood Hills and through the front doors of some of Hollywood's most infamous players. The dialogue is crisp and witty, and Pete's relationship with his father, a former studio head of security, fine-tunes the mystery further with the notion that everything isn't always as it appears.

With Pete Castle, Buck has given us a new protagonist who is sure to be back in another starring role.

TV producer and host of the series Murder! Clark Kester hires mystery screenwriter Pete Castle to solve a homicide that will be the feature of this year's debut program. Pete is to identify who murdered movie swashbuckler Jock Newhall following the wrap party of the filming of Love's Lonely Quest. The homicide occurred four decades ago and no one has solved it yet, but on the positive side the key players still live. On the negative side, no one wants the investigation opened and Clark has been threatened.

As Pete makes inquiries questioning the prime cast members, his father (head of security at Pacific Studios at that time) comes under suspicion. Pops refuses to talk about what happened the night that someone murdered Jock. Soon a copycat murder occurs as the culprit, probably the same person who killed Jock, murders Clark, making it imperative that Pete identify the killer(s) before someone else is dead.

The cast makes A BLOOD RED ROSE an intriguing who-done-it as the hero struggles with his concern that his beloved Pop is intricately involved in at least a cover-up or worse. The story line hooks the audience with readers wondering how Pete will solve a case that is frozen. Though a punk's attempt to run the hero over with a forklift seems out of place, Pete makes the tale move at a fast clip. His interviews of the key players who starred in the ill fated film, the victim's granddaughter, the cop who investigated the homicide, his reluctant dad, and a medium claiming to speak with Jock's ghost leave readers with a fine mystery.

Harriet Klausner

This is a book that will appeal to hard-core mystery fans, and to those who like a look inside the workings of Hollywood. The author covered the entertainment industry for The Associated Press for a number of years, and he uses the knowledge he picked up there to pepper the book with insights and insider information not available to most authors.
Buck's hero, Pete Castle, is a Hollywood screenwriter who is asked to investigate and develop a TV program aimed at solving the 40-year-old murder of a top movie star before a room-full of wrap-party guests. Before long, there are death threats and more murders or attempted murders.
The author uses authentic-sounding dialogue as the hero questions those who were at the party where the murder occurred, and assorted others who might know something about it. Along the way, Castle comes in for a variety of bumps and bruises and attempts on his life.
It is a well-written book, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I loved this book and thought it was very interesting. I have been a Cincinnati fan since the 70s!

One of the greatest sports biographies of the later half of the 20th century. This book is a personal diary of the entire 1974 (Big Red machine) season... The book gives a fascinating inside look into the game of baseball by one of its most controversial, famous and accomplished players.

This is a great book for teaching a hard-nosed, common-sense approach when digging in at the plate. No one knew the situation at the plate than Charlie Hustle. Pete Rose thought going 2-4 was an off day. Now THAT's a tough mental approach that I can respect.

The chapters dealing with the mechanics of a solid swing are great. Perhaps even better are the numerous mental tips on how to approach an at-bat for all situations and hitting styles. My wife and I are expecting a son in February and this will be his first book I buy him...right after the Bible, of course.

Excellent job of explaining the most important fundamentals succintly with inspiring mental approach to the game. Great large format pictures accompany the text. Advanced topics include details on the two strike stroke, practical reasons for a hitchless compact swing, and other useful "insider" tips. Text should be easy to read by any player 12+.

I have found this book to be very infomative on problems I had with my weight. I have lost 40lbs. with the help of this book, and being aware of what goes into my mouth and brain. I use to think I was a bag of pretzels now I am a bag of salad.

Pete Rose was one of baseball's greatest hitters, but his off-field actions cast a dark light on his achievements, leading to investigations into his gambling and a lifetime banishment from the game which even barred him from induction into the Hall of Fame. His story is told in Pete Rose: A Biography, a hard-hitting sports biography which presents the nature of his lasting legacy and his post-baseball life.

Sokolove's book is truly an excellent read. Although the title gives the connotation that the book is going to be a hatchet job on Pete Rose, the book is actually carefully researched and well written. I have been a Pete Rose fan for most of my life. I admired his determination and ability to play each game as though it were the seventh game of the World Series. (If we only had players like that today . . .) Sokolove does a great job at capturing the qualities that made him one of baseball's greatest players.

However, Pete Rose was also a shady character who loved having an entourage perform errands for him and tell him how great he was. Pete Rose, as a beloved baseball star, felt that he was above the rest of society and eventually this caught up to him in 1989-1990. Sokolove delves deeply into the character flaws of Rose that ultimately led to his exile from baseball and imprisonment for tax fraud. What is particularly interesting about Sokolove's book is how he deals with the careful way Rose constructed his own mythology by using the press to his advantage. In sum, this book is the story of a great player and flawed personality who learned (I hope) the hard way that even if you have 4256 hits in Major League Baseball, you can still end up like Oedipus in Colonus.

This is a well written, thoroughly researched biography. A great many former teammates and friends of Pete Rose were interviewed for the book. He is portrayed in both his positive and negative aspects. The conclusions drawn at the end seem very solid and built on a good foundation. I would recommend this book to any base ball fan and especially and Cincinnati Reds fan. I learned a good amount not only about Pete Rose but also about baseball during the 1960's - 1980's and the social history of the city of Cincinnati. While the book may seem like an attack on Rose at first glance it really is probably one of the most well balanced biographys I've ever read. Probably the most realistic book about Rose available.

This book nicely represents the seedy side of Pete Rose - a man with no real friends and very few principles. Sokolove portrays Rose as being only out for himself, illustrated at its peek in his chase for Cobb's record. It was interesting to read how many of his contemporaries felt Rose looked foolish chasing the record with such diminished skills.

What may be even sadder is how the Commissioners' office looked the other way for so many years as his gambling problem grew worse. Bowie Kuhn really does not come out looking really strong in his attempt to "clean up" baseball, especially after the drug scandals of the late 70s. Unfortunately, his office's refusal to seriously confront Rose in the 70s led Rose to believe that he was beyond the rules. And, as usually occurs, this led to the crash and destruction of a supposed American hero - finally exposed for his lies and selfishness. The truth must really hurt for his fans in Cincinnati, who praised and adored him for so many years. Somewhere, Ray Fosse is smiling right now.

Anyone who grew up a Reds fan in the 70's will find this book disturbing and depressing, to say the least.
No one should feel sorry for Pete Rose, he brought his troubles all on himself. What is depressing are the number of enablers he had around him beginning with Major League Baseball itself! Pete's problems could have been confronted as early as 1970 but since he put "fannies in the seats" both the Reds and the commisioners office chose to look the other way.
I reccomend this book not just as a biography but also a study of self destructive behavior and enabling an addict.
After you're finished find something humorous to read, you'll need it.

Pete Rose is white trash, that is what is comes down to.

Pete Rose is a real jerk. The guy could play baseball, but that's it.

As a person, he is a jerk.

As least he will never get into the baseball hall of fame. If Pete Rose got into that sacred place, it would be a shame.

While George Will's political opinions are often subject to my snorts of derision, his feelings about baseball are beyond reproach. An unrepentant Cubs fan who once responded to the statement made on a national news show in 1984, "The Cubs winning the division title is not exactly a momentous event in the history of Western Civilization" by saying, "Sez who?", his writing about baseball is absolutely the best. He truly loves the game and he demonstrates it in every sentence. His honesty about what has been right about the game and the great wrongs that were committed is a history of American society as well as the sport of baseball.
The American society is changing, as it has always done. Baseball has changed dramatically since, as Will so aptly puts it, "The serfs were set free." This refers to the overthrow of the reserve clause, which essentially made baseball players the property of a team. An anachronism at best and an atrocity at worst, it was likely the last legal form of slavery that still existed in the Western World. Since that time, baseball has expanded to incredible heights, the salaries of the players have skyrocketed and so has attendance. Despite many actions that have damaged the game (DH, multi-use parks and the wild card), baseball continues to thrive. Will describes all of what he sees that is good and bad in the game. I have read many baseball books in my life, but there are none better than this one and his previous book, "Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball." Every fan should read them both.

George Will brings his flowing if slightly verbose style to the issue of baseball. The book is a collection of newspaper columns and some essays concerning the state of baseball during the 1980's-1990's. As a Chicago Cub fan, Will focuses largely and perhaps a bit too heavily on that team plus the Baltimore Orioles, who are near his job in Washington D.C. There's also coverage of baseball labor issues, sociology, politics, trends in attendance and style of play, even some mention of oft-ignored teams like the White Sox. Of particular note is the author's controversial but correct view that since millions of fans pay to see the players (and not the owners), the players are both labor and product, and thus entitled to large salaries in this multi-billion dollar industry. One need not always agree with the author's opinions to see that he writes about this sport with heart and compassion. Will doesn't quite get a home run with this book, but score it a line-drive double.

This book contains more than 70 articles written about baseball by George Will between 1974 and 1997. Many of the essays are from the week of opening days or a post script of a season that just ended and these essays all have a similar tone and information, but all of them are well written and contain numerous facts, opinions and insights. The book also covers significant events in the history of baseball--the banning of Pete Rose, the strike of 1994, the fight for free agency and of course the yearly collapse of the Chicago Cubs, which is the team for which Will is a lifelong fanatic. This is not the best book of baseball stories I've read, but it is entertaining and thought provoking, so it deserves to be read by baseball fans and should be picked up by sports fans who want to learn why baseball is the most elegant sport and why it has so many diehard fans.

Bunts by George F. Will is a collection of works written by Will between the years 1974 and 1997. Throughout this book, Will discusses the major changes in baseball, such as the designated hitter rule, unionization, recent franchise additions, free agency, and more. A long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan, Will, in several funny articles, describes what it is like to be a fan of a tema that hasn't won a pennant since World War II. A skilled political columnist, we are drawn into the argument over free agency and designated hitting. I love baseball, but sometimes find books about the sport to be tedious and overly stuffed with statistics. While this book does contain statistics (Will knows a great deal about the sport he loves), you're not smothered by them. It was a pleasurable read. The only part of the book I disliked was the rehashing (several times) of the strike disputes and how many times Will felt it necessary to prove that the owners were wrong about free agency. But believe me, you can get through that. Besides, this is a compilation of works - it's not like he intentionally meant to repeat himself. Will's reflections on baseball are remarkable considering that the man never played the sport professionally and is just an avid fan - so much of a fan in fact that he once owned stock in the Cubs franchise! The pictures are great, and the things I learned from this book. I thought I knew alot about baseball, but George F. Will proved me wrong in a way that I found to be interesting and alot of fun!

Those who have read Will's "Men at Work" already are aware of the author's knowledge of the game as well as his talent to put it into words. This is a compilation of the author's articles on Baseball that have appeared primarily in his newspaper columns over the years. Mr. Will, a spokesman for the political right, discards his politics for these excursions into his passion. Indeed, one is surprized by how often Mr. Will sides with the players in the labor/management diputes that litter modern Baseball. The author shares his nostalgia for the past and his appreciation of the heros of the present. If he seems a bit caught up in his Cubs and Orioles, he can be forgiven because the reader has his/her own favorites. We know the frustration and joy of the same loyalties he shares with us.

I read the first two thirds of the book one "column" at a time between other books. I did so because I had read "The Best of Jim Murray" some years ago and did so over the course of several days. By the mid-point of that book, I came to the realization that Mr. Murray had written the same column for decades. It was just a matter of changing the name of the subject. You don't catch on to that reading two or three columns a week. Well, I read the last third of the book in the course of several hours. I did not get the same reaction that I got to Murray's book. However, I lost track of the number of times the total season attendance of the 1935 St. Louis Browns (80,922) was compared to the Opening Day attendance of the 1993 Colorado Rockies (80,227). There were other such repetitions of facts and figures that were noticeable when the book is read cover to cover. I suggest you savor the articles and let the book entertain you throughout the course of a summer or a year. However you choose to read it, don't miss this intellectual appreciation of what was once known as "America's Pasttime".

An important story and a modern tragedy, told in a highly readable manner. As a big fan of Pete Rose in his playing days, I initially thought James Reston was unfairly biased against Rose through many parts of the book. After finishing it, I think he probably struck the right balance, as there is simply no excuse for much of what Rose did off the field. Reston almost but did not quite fall into the trap of deifying Giamatti; he was, after all an extraordinary commissioner unlike baseball had ever seen. But Reston correctly pointed out that Giamatti bungled the investigation of Rose from a due process and fairness point of view, and if the matter had gone to trial Giamatti would have had a very difficult time on the stand.

The real point is that Giamatti did investigate, and he did take action. Even with the "settlement" that did not answer the question of whether Rose bet on baseball, Giamatti felt no constraint against offering his own opinion as to Rose and his betting on baseball. And Rose did bet on baseball. We can learn from Giamatti. How refreshing it would be to have a commissioner who would take on the steroids scandal which has made a mockery of home run records and likely changed the outcome of far more games and pennant races than gambling ever did. Where is the courage to have a thorough investigation, and a commissioner who would speak the truth?

Unfortunately, baseball has been a silent partner in the steroids scandal, happily banking the proceeds of increased attendance pursuant to amazing and superhuman home run derbys. I don't think Bart Giamatti would approve, and I would like to think he would acted to protect the integrity of baseball.

Finally, I agree with Reston's take on the Hall of Fame issue. Let the sportswriters vote. If they say yes to Rose, tell Rose's story in a display at the hall, the good and the bad. Especially the bad. And do the same for those whose steroid-enhanced records make them "worthy" of consideration in the future.

Interesting idea but ultimately the book fails. The contrast between Giamatti, a man of ideas, and Rose, a man of action -- both flawed in different ways should have made a fascinating read. Instead, the book plods along until the final 50 pages when it begins to redeem itself.
Giamatti's life was just not that compelling and the ponderous quotes from his writings makes one wonder if anyone actually understood Giamatti's abstruse points.
Rose, by contrast, had a more one-dimensional life but emerges as the more interesting person.
It would have been better if Reston had focused on the years of conflict between the two and flashed back to past biographical events to explain how the actions taken by the principals were shaped by those past events. Had Reston examined why Rose handled the pressure better than Giamatti would have been a shorter, tighter and punchier book. Writing chronologically slowed the book down and I was glad to have reached the end and be done with it.
The author's reseach is quite good although trivial errors (Dick Cavett's wife is Carrie Nye, Whitey Ford coined the nickname "Charley Hustle"), are annoying.
I expected more.

The book is an interesting biography of two very different people.

Pete Rose is a real jerk. The guy could play baseball, but that's it.

As a person, he is a jerk.

As least he will never get into the baseball hall of fame. If Pete Rose got into that sacred place, it would be a shame.

I never finished it. I wanted to read a story of Pete Rose's suspension from baseball and instead got a history of Giamatti's life.

If you aren't a diehard, you may want to give this one a miss.

An excellent profile of two persons striving to be outstanding in their field (no pun intended). It shows how talented players who were friends of Rose melted into other professions, lacking the single-minded drive that he had.

I want my daughter to read it because it's also an excellent profile of eastern private schools and the politics of getting admitted, being a student and professor. Reston believes that both men at their peak represented the best of their profession. (I can't tell my daughter that's the other side that she'd find interesting because it would be as well-received as a lecture.)

The book goes through the childhood of both men and their professional development. The details on Rose's gambling are convincing: you literally see how Pete self-destructed. I think that it was a cab driver who sums up how Pete could have saved himself right up to the end (the paraphrasing is mine: "apologize, indicate that he'd never bet for or against Cincinnati, and gotten away from gamblers") but was so ego-centric that he was self-destructive. As for betting on the Reds, it's clear that he did.

A well-told story, but Reston is not as crisp a writer as his father. His transitions are often awkward, leaving you wondering what topic he's on. And there's a factual error so glaring that I wondered how a sportswriter or editor could let it get by -- he refers to the Chicago Cubs as the "Southsiders."

Pete Rose's book is good for forming a mental approach to baseball or softball. He stresses the importance of teamwork and getting along with your teammates, as well as playing hard and playing to win, something that is often missing from timid youth teams or casual adult 'beer' leagues. Most remarkably, he equates winning with keeping morale on the team high: he frowns upon angry coaches and abusive teammates who criticize others. Instead of public anger, he recommends giving supportive advice privately and briefly with players who make a bad play. He gives unconventional advice about becoming a switch hitter early in one's career so that one never has to face a curve ball thrown the wrong way.

The advice that he gives would probably be better for younger players, although after watching some adult rec league teams exploding into anger and self-destructing, it would benefit them as well.

I found the more sparse information about technique far less helpful. This is what I was looking for when I bought this book, unfortuantely. Again, it's the mental advice here that is better, such as the goal of hitting the ball hard, rather than the result (getting base hits), that is his helpful focus.

This book is useful for any player looking for a fresh psychological and team approach to winning the game.

Pete Rose is one of the greatest baseball players. In this book he will teach you how to be a good all around baseball player. He explains how to play every position correctly. It is important to practice too and he preaches that. If you can switch hit he believes that it is a great advantage to you and gives good reason why. Don Gullett, who was a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, teaches you how to pitch. He shows how to throw certain pitches and how to take care of your arm. Practically anything that you would want or need to know about how to play baseball correctly is in this book.
I would recommend this book to all young players and any coach because it is a really good book for showing you how to play and practice. If you like baseball then this book would probably interest you. I liked it because it helped me understand the game better and how to play and practice better.

Pete Rose is one of the greatest baseball players. In this book he will teach you how to be a good all around baseball player. He explains how to play every position correctly. It is important to practice too and he preaches that. If you can switch hit he believes that it is a great advantage to you and gives good reason why. Don Gullett, who was a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, teaches you how to pitch. He shows how to throw certain pitches and how to take care of your arm. Practically anything that you would want or need to know about how to play baseball correctly is in this book.
I would recommend this book to all young players and any coach because it is a really good book for showing you how to play and practice. If you like baseball then this book would probably interest you. I liked it because it helped me understand the game better and how to play and practice better.

It was October 13, 1970. The Reds were about to lose to the Orioles in the Series. It was also my tenth birthday. My grandparents had bought The Pete Rose Story - An Autobiography for me. I'd read alot when I was a little younger - lots of childhood literature, that is, but nothing like what I was about to read.
Pete had been in the Major Leagues for 6-7 years and he related lots of stories about busses in the Minors, about his buddies Antonio Perez, Tommy Helms and Lee May. He also told about his managers. I remember one story he told about climbing out the back-end of a stationwagon as they were driving down the freeway on the way to their next minor league game. He related crawling forward along the luggage rack and peering down at the guys in the front seat, scaring the begeesus out of them, haha. He also told a lot about his youth, his father, and the role his father played in his athletic devlopment.
I have no idea what happened to the book, but I sure wish I still had it. I plan to buy a new copy someday. His innocence, his love of the game contrasts so much with what happened at the end of his career and the intervening years.
For those of you who like - or liked - Pete Rose, this book is a definite winner. Is it worth $150? That, of course, is a question you have to ask yourself. But I plan on buying it someday.