Rose Just Watches in Win Over the Padres

It’s known affectionately here as the “Rose Watch,” but look what happened Monday night?

Pete Rose watched, too.

There he stood in the Red dugout, in uniform, but not in the game. Cincinnati fans came running down to the front row, begging him to cut this unselfish stuff and put himself in. A runner was on second. The score was tied in the bottom of the ninth. Ty Cobb was tied, too. And a right-handed hitter was coming up against a right-handed pitcher. Who better to turn to in a pinch than Pete Rose?

Dave Concepcion.

Rose, choosing to save history for another night (perhaps tonight), let Concepcion bat against Padre reliever Goose Gossage, and Concepcion hit a ball up the middle so hard that Gossage fell right on his can. The ball scooted over second base and Dave Parker came trucking around third to score the winning run, 2-1.

The crowd, here to see an all-time hit record, hit an all time high. They stood on their toes and bellowed after, earlier, they’d booed Rose’s decision to keep himself on the bench. And, oh boy, they get to do it again tonight, because, tonight, Rose will play. He has promised, as long as right-hander LaMarr Hoyt starts as planned. And Hoyt also promised to show up.

“I want to get people out,” Hoyt said Monday. “I don’t care if it’s Pete Rose or Ty Cobb or whomever.”

Rose, wearing (what else?) a “Pete Rose” T-shirt at his postgame press conference, said: “I think there will be a tremendous atmosphere tomorrow night, from batting practice on. Unless I’m absolutely wrong, you probably won’t witness too many more or better enthusiastic nights at the ballpark in Cincinnati than tomorrow night. I mean, seriously. I really believe that.

“I’ll be sky high. I’ll be about 6-foot-6 tomorrow night.”

He’ll have quite an audience. Reds owner Marge Schott got what she wanted--a chance for the record to be broken here. She even gets a sellout crowd of 52,342 plus standing room.

She was greeted by media members after Concepcion’s game-winner, and someone winked at her and said: “Did you tell him not to pinch-hit?”

“Did I tell him not to pinch hit?” she asked. “You’re funny.”

Still, National League President Charles (Chub) Feeney wasn’t laughing when he said prior to the game: “I’ll give him two days, and then I’m going home.” Commissioner Peter Ueberroth was there, too, and, yes, he claimed no part in this conspiracy to keep the “Rose Watch” going for another day.

Certainly, this night was going to be different when every move in the Padre bullpen was scrutinized by the crowd of 29,289. Rose, as he has done all year, starts Tony Perez at first base against left-handed starters, and such was the case when the Padres sent lefty Dave Dravecky to the mound Monday. Still, what if Dravecky found trouble? What if a right-handed reliever found himself in the game?

With the Padres leading 1-0 in the sixth (on Kevin McReynolds’ RBI single), Dravecky walked speedy Gary Redus. Lance McCullers and Gene Walter squirmed in the bullpen. They actually threw warmup pitches.

Absolute madness.

Dravecky survived, although Buddy Bell tied the game with a bloop single to right. After Perez opened the seventh with a single, Rose sent in Eric Davis to pinch-run. Would Rose take Perez’s place in the field?

He did not.

Boos, unbelieveably. Here came chants of “Peeeeete, Peeeeete.”

“It was hot in our dugout,” Rose said. “It was so damn crowded in there. I’ve never seen so many guys in the dugout. And cameramen were down at the end.

“It had a real good playoff atmosphere. There’s no way it was 29,000 (fans). I counted 31,000 myself . . . I mean, when the crowd gets in the game, it really relaxes you. It turns you on is what it does. It gets you perspiring. I was over there sweating, and I said to (coach) George (Scherger), ‘Damn George. It’s hot today.’ He said: ‘Not really.’

“But I was soaking wet, and I said ‘I’m not even doing anything. Every time they started yelling my name, I wanted to go down and get a drink of water. I didn’t want to hear that. I thought it would make my teammates mad.”

In the eighth, with the right-handed Gossage pitching, Rose had Ron Oester on first, but sent Max Venable up to pinch-hit for the pitcher Andy McGaffigan. Boos. After Venable popped out, he had Eddie Milner bat for Redus. More boos.

But Milner singled Oester to third, and took second on a throw from the outfield.

“I used the two (pinch-hitters) that were the hottest,” Rose said, citing Venable’s 11 hits in his last 25 at-bats and Milner’s four in his last 11.

Bell stranded them, setting up Concepcion’s ninth-inning single.

Rose, single-minded in his approach to managing, was thinking actually that the Padres might walk Concepcion with first base open. Then, might he pinch-hit?

“I was ready there,” Rose said. “I was ready in that situation . . . I might have hit in that situation. We’re never going to know, are we?”

Padre Notes

Pete Rose, asked if a manager can be a good pinch-hitter, answered: “Probably better because of his mental approach into the game. But I don’t know if Tommy Lasorda can be a good pinch-hitter or not.” . . . Catcher Terry Kennedy was scratched from the lineup Monday night because of a bad back. . . . LaMarr Hoyt on tonight’s big game: “A guy asked me what it’d be like when people are yelling ‘Peeeeete. Peeeeete.’ Well, it doesn’t matter if they say: ‘Yea,’ or ‘boo’ or ‘Peeeeete.’ To me out there, it all sounds like ‘Ahhhhhh.’ I’ll just do the best I can. People say I’ll get to the record book, but that’s a negative thing. If I get him out four or five times, I’ll remember that. I’d remember it if he gets the hit, too. But it’d be personally more satisfying to know I got him out.” Hoyt, who has been bothered by a shoulder injury, last pitched on Aug. 13 against the Reds, and Rose was 0 for 2, the only times he has ever faced Hoyt.