The Unprincipled Peter : HUSTLE: The Myth, Life, and Lies of Pete Rose <i> By Michael Sokolove (Simon & Schuster: $19.95; 320 pp.) </i>

In March of 1963, Mickey Mantle dubbed Pete Rose “Charlie Hustle.” It was not a compliment. Mantle thought Rose looked silly running full-speed to first base after drawing a walk.

That same spring, Rose’s Cincinnati teammates called him “The Rook.” They said it with sneers, deriding his flash, his blatant confidence that he was already a major leaguer, just like the popular veteran, Don Blasingame, whose job Rose wanted.

Rose wore his uniform pants so tight that manager Fred Hutchinson warned him that he was going to make a bare-ass of himself stooping for a ground ball. Rose grinned. It would make a great photo opportunity and was bound to get him some ink.

On an exhibition trip to Mexico City, Rose and some other players attended a live sex show. Not content with voyeurism, Rose jumped on stage and got in on the action. Head first. The players were stunned; Hutchinson, when he heard of it, was mortified; Rose took it all in stride.

At age 22, then, Pete Rose was uniquely aggressive, totally ego-centric and had an instinct for publicity. He was ambitious, selfish, and had little respect for his older teammates. He had, indeed, the essential qualities of a star.

“Hustle: The Myth, Life, and Lies of Pete Rose” begins with scenes from that spring-training camp in 1963. Author Michael Sokolove has got it down the way I, and others who were there, remember it. If the rest of Sokolove’s biography is as credible as the prologue, Rose’s public persona as a role model for Little Leaguers has been grossly misrepresented.

Sokolove’s “Hustle” is a harsh, even cruel, indictment of a greedy, friendless boy/man obsessed with gambling and unable to handle it. It is a tale of a celebrity who conned the press, ran a scam on his fans and eventually self-destructed. If it weren’t so exhaustively detailed it would be unbelievable.

In 1987, Sokolove was the baseball beat writer for the Cincinnati Post. He had daily contact with Rose, saw the people who hung out with him, knew from city-side reporters that Rose was into big-time gambling, heard the rumors of investigations by the office of the baseball commissioner.

In 1989, Sokolove told Rose he was writing a book about him and asked for his cooperation. Rose wanted money, lots of it. Sokolove refused to pay for Rose’s side of the story. Rose had fumbled the ball--the worst error of his career.

Earl Lawson, the veteran sportswriter who had counseled Rose ever since his rookie season, once told Pete: “Help the press and you help yourself. The road to fame and riches leads through the daily sports pages.”

Turning down the press often has an equal and opposite reaction. A one-time investigative reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News, Sokolove soon dug up enough material to crucify Rose. He interviewed 112 people: “Many had been close to Pete Rose at one time, were saddened by his problems, and found talking about him painful,”

“Hustle” is considerably less compassionate, its author relentlessly critical of a man he deems a mean-spirited con man who played by the rules on the field but considered himself above the rules off it.

In 1976, Rose and I collaborated on an as-told-to article for Boy’s Life on Pete’s approach to hitting. He was articulate, informative, cocky and irreverent. I thought I captured his voice perfectly. The magazine editor, Bob Hood, demurred, saying his audience would not appreciate Rose in the raw.

Ten years later, as Rose chased Ty Cobb’s record for total career hits, I interviewed Rose for radio. He was crisp, witty and a bit crude. Great copy. His playing career had been dazzling and he was a millionaire. I thought he deserved everything he was getting.

“Hustle” is less sanguine about Rose’s activities during that time. As early as 1970, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn had his security chief, Henry Fitzgibbon, investigating Rose’s gambling and his association with bookmakers. Fitzgibbon was suspicious, but wasn’t convinced he had a case. Besides, Rose was the most popular player in baseball; he put fannies in the seats.

In Cincinnati, and later in Philadelphia, team management had serous misgivings. Dick Wagner, the Reds’ general manager, is quoted as saying in 1978: “Pete’s legs may get broken when his playing days are over.” Rose was welshing on his debts to bookies, but he was such a big loser that some continued to handle his action.

Bill Giles, the Phillies’ executive vice president when Rose signed with Philadelphia, knew of Rose’s gambling obsession. Giles empathized, having had the habit himself at one time. Rose helped the Phillies win a world championship, so Giles closed his eyes when Pete bet big. “After all,” Giles told Sokolove, “he was our bread and butter.”

Under baseball’s rules, Rose’s association with known gamblers was enough to get him a year’s suspension. Leo Durocher had been taken down for it; so had Denny McClain. But Rose was a true superstar, a legend in his own time. He was allowed to get away with breaking the rules, so he ignored warnings that he had better get his act together.

By 1987, Rose’s obsession with gambling was out of control. “Hustle” quotes a crony who went to the race track with Rose:

“Petey was throwing away a thousand, fifteen hundred a race. He was losing ten thousand a night.”

That spring, I wrote an article for Life on Reds outfielder Eric Davis. Rose, the manager, was finished as a player, getting fat; he seemed bored with baseball, and was unaccountably brusque. His personality, like his body, had degenerated. I wondered what had happened.

“Hustle” lays it all out, in sordid detail. Sokolove’s dislike for his subject is evident. He takes pains to point out that Rose took amphetamines throughout his career, but many players used speed in the 1960s. Rose did flaunt his extramarital affairs, but that’s not a unique hobby in the sports biz.

On the one hand, Rose was a financial showboat, with a mansion, expensive cars, Rolex and gold chains. On the other hand, Rose was cheap, having once stiffed the clubhouse man in Cincinnati.

Rose had few close friends at the end of his career, and most of them were low lifes. Sokolove got that right.

“Hustle” is a stark portrait of an obsessive gambler who tarnished his reputation as a bona-fide baseball hero. Sokolove cites a psychologist who suggests that Rose’s only chance was to face the truth about himself; otherwise his addiction would take him down the sewer.

He didn’t. And it did.