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The
most prolific hitter in the history of baseball cannot ever step on a
playing field. Nor can he ever be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Or will he be?
 Before
being banished from baseball, Pete Rose said, “I’d be willing to bet you,
if I was a betting man, that I have never bet on baseball.” Maybe that’s
a sure bet in the mind of aggressive Aries, “Charlie Hustle,” Pete Rose
(born April 14, 1941, 5:45 am, in Cincinnati, Ohio). But you can also
bet others do not remain so convinced. Lingering speculation prompted
announcers at the All Star Game in 1999 to question allegations of his
gambling.
Charlie
Hustle
Pete
Rose succumbed to a fate worse than death on August 23, 1987, when he
was banned from baseball for life. On September 26, 1997, he applied for
reinstatement to the game. Remarkably, nothing happened with the application
until recently. With Jupiter, the benefactor and truth teller, crossing
over Venus and the Sun in Rose’s chart, justice (a theme of Jupiter) surfaces.
Venus correlates with social graces, appropriateness and polite responses.
The Sun personifies basic identity. It’s a promising run.
A
true-to-form Aries Sun, aggressive to a fault and motivated by his own
statistics, Rose played his own game. He also knew it. He once said, “I’m
just like everybody else. I have two arms, two legs and 4,000 hits.” With
that quip he demonstrated his uniqueness-seeking Mars in Aquarius (at
about the same place as Ken Griffey Jr.’s Mars), and set himself into
the unreachable category of superiority that his Aries edge and strong
Mars (associated with the sign Aries) unquenchably desired.
Pete
Rose incarnated during a difficult generation. The
Great Depression still cast a pall over the land. War and rationing
seemed to be the fate of the country. Born with three major planets in
Taurus: Saturn, Jupiter and Uranus, the institutions of money and providence
taught him major lessons. A deeper examination of this trinity addresses
the gambling issue with inconclusive results. Uranus, the risk-taker,
joins with Jupiter, the justifying, I-make-the-rules planet. On the other
side, the rule-abiding, cautious and careful Saturn pulls hard on tethers
of responsibility. Rose’s Venus-Sun alignment could throw caution to the
wind (look at the Rolls Royce he drove). And his happy-go-lucky Sagittarius
Moon in the deeply passionate Eighth House (associated with big bucks,
sex and emotional intensity) demands the ultimate in a free-wheeling lifestyle.
Grand
Trines and Grandstands
Pete
Rose has a grand trine between the verbally-raucous Mercury in Aries,
the emotionally-inflamed Moon in Sagittarius and the ego-driven Pluto
in Leo, in the element of fire. Get me the biggest and best. My records
will stand through eternity (4,256 hits will last until the cows come
home). Maybe it was all too easy for Pete. The energy of a grand trine
moves with ease, effortless grace and that thing called talent. His trine,
incidentally, also throws caution out the window. A gambling archetype,
this pattern does not insist he gambled, at least not in the way they
say he gambled with the game. It simply shows a tendency for his efforts
to be smooth as silk. Somehow, with this much ease, one feels driven to
add creative tension.
Not
even a Hollywood script could have written it better. The most dramatic
tension in his career occurred Rose’s son, serving as batboy, watching
as Pete Rose claimed the all-time base hit record. The cheering lasted
seven minutes. Pete Rose cried. You can safely wager good money that Rose
has since shed more than a few tears over his fate in baseball.
Back
in the Game
This
year, Rose’s three planets in Taurus receive an important conference call
as the Sun, Moon and the rest of the planets up through Saturn pass through
Taurus. Will he be reinstated? How can it not happen? The American public
has learned in the past decades to forgive many more critical transgressions
by notable figures. Can we overlook gambling? You bet we can.
Can
baseball forgive? It remains a Capricorn institution—big business. And
baseball is big business. What’s good for baseball is good for the business
of baseball— just sound financial reasoning. The truth be known, no one
ever in the history of the game got as many hits as the player known as
“Hollywood” (for his brashness, chesty walk, annoyingly excessive hustle
and foul mouth). Such a milestone deserves the recognition of the Himalayan
quality of the task accomplished. And so does his character.
Baseball’s
history consists of a colorful lot of characters. From Cobb to Ruth to
Rose, baseball players demonstrate a scrappy way of life. Rose offers
baseball a lot of color, like it or not. Soon the Commissioner must pull
the Rose thorn from his hand. Forgive and pardon unproven charges. Soon
he will see through the color of his glasses that a Rose is still a Rose.
And that Rose is the most prolific flower in the garden of baseball history.
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