Frank and Pete

Moving toward the last day of the baseball season, Powerline has an appreciation of Frank Robinson.

I never saw Frank Robinson play and rooted against most of the teams he managed. But Powerline's appreciation brings me to a thought I had a few years ago: namely, that the inclusion of Pete Rose, instead of either Frank Robinson or Roberto Clemente, on Major League Baseball's 20th Century All-Star team, was a crime and a joke.

Frank Robinson and Roberto Clemente were superlative five-tool players of historic proportions, and the records bear this out. Pete Rose was a very good singles hitter for a very long time, a front-runner and showboat who had no power, played lousy defense, and, for a lead-off man, was laughably slow. He was fortunate that, on the 1970s Cincinnati Reds teams in which he forged his reputation, he hit in front of a string of bruisers and bashers: Morgan, Bench, Perez, Foster, Griffey. (Morgan is another show-off, but at least he could hit for distance. As he's been known to mention.) Rose's award for "Player of the Seventies" by The Sporting News was patently ridiculous; never mind Mike Schmidt, Reggie Jackson, Willie Stargell, Jim Palmer, and Catfish Hunter; at any given time Rose was never better than the fourth-best player on his own team.

What edged Rose into the realm of greatness was (give Rose this, at least) his longevity. Give him a .305 batting average and 3,000 hits, instead of 4,000, and you basically have a modern-day Al Simmons. Or a George Brett minus the home runs. Who can't field. Writers tip-toed aroudn the fact that, as player-manager of the Reds, he had free reign to pencil himself in day after day, right up to the point where his presence on the field was embarrassing.

I'm sorry to see Frank Robinson go. I'm sorrier that, on a certain October night in Atlanta, he didn't get his due.