Pete Rose was a childhood friend of mine. We were good friends and we practiced baseball together even though I was really not interested in baseball. I was more interested and intrigued in Pete Rose. He was a more complicated and misunderstood person than the public knows. Pete would bring me over to his house for dinner and, during those days, that was unusual for a white boy to do; that is, bring a black boy over to his house to play and have dinner. His parents were consciously, and unconsciously, aware of this unusual event. But they did somehow know this was important for Pete and they not only allowed it to occur they encouraged it. They might not have understood themselves why they let it happened but they somehow knew it was important to Pete's life.
As time went on we went our separate ways as typical American boys usually do. As we all know Pete went on to be a truly great ballplayer. Though Pete was known as "Charlie Hustle", his real talent, unbeknownst to the public, was his innate ability to mimic and absorb the frequency and energy of young black male athletes. In particular, baseball athletes. Pete Rose studied what he thought was a superior athleticism. He studied the movement, the gate, the natural effortless flow of black baseball players. He did this all his life starting with me through high school and into the professional league. It was truly an alchemical process that comes natural to many people. Unfortunately this gift is seldom recognized, not even by the "owner."
Because of this, one of Pete Rose's most important gifts is his understanding of the black race and be at ease with it. I think to this day he himself does not understand this gift he has. But there is still time to utilize this gift for mankind. Pete Rose can walk into a room filled with black people and be completely comfortable because he has studied, played, and lived with them all his life. And blacks, as well, are comfortable around him. Pete's ability to absorb the energy and frequency of the black male athletes that he studied, using a truly spiritual alchemical process to transmute this energy, really makes for a unique individual in today's world. On the one hand, the Blacks showed him how to play baseball at a superior level, but he also absorbed the inner soul of what it is to be a black man. From an objective mind this is hard to phantom but from an intuitive being this is self-evident.
One must remember that he grew up in an era of segregation, formally and un-formally. The segregation of the races and, this misunderstanding between the races, was an environment he found himself in. Though Pete may not agree with this I saw this from an early age. I knew he was destined to be a truly great athlete. And I know that I was the first stepping stone on this life journey to not only be a special ball player but also, more importantly, to be an expression of relations between the races. I truly believe he can be a positive role model between the races even today. This is the main point, his true life purpose was to be this conduit between the black and white races. This was more important than his role as a great baseball player. I'm not sure what his emotional, physical, and financial situation is at this time, but if he wished he could still play an important role of increasing the understanding between the races today. I think he has missed and overlooked this important role he was to play. There is still time.
It is ironic that the public, the press, and the baseball world, so misunderstood Pete Rose. They only see him within a narrow scope that is a tiny part of his total energetic prism. He is so much more than a few gambling debts and IRS problems. In a way that is the flaw of our contemporary shallow TV culture: i.e. to judge someone from sound bites and not the totality of his human expression. I believe researchers looking back at Pete Rose will see that he was so much more than the public understood. In brief, race relations were very different and very difficult to experience when Pete Rose grew up and played baseball. He was actually a torch bearer but no-one saw the light, least of all the base ball fans.
| Price : $399.00
