Rose Adds One More Hit to the Record

Chris Poulos bought Pete Rose’s first book, read the Dowd report and was convinced well before Rose’s recent admission that baseball’s all-time hits leader had broken the game’s cardinal rule by betting on the Cincinnati Reds.

Yet Poulos found himself standing among several hundred fans at a book signing attended by Rose Wednesday evening inside a Santa Clarita Valley Wal-Mart in Stevenson Ranch, a recently purchased copy of Rose’s biography in hand.

“No one played the game harder than he did,” Poulos, 28, said in explaining his presence. “In today’s game, guys make $12 million to $15 million a year and you don’t know if they care. You know [Rose] cared, and I admire that about him. That’s the way I tried to play growing up.”

That sentiment was shared by many of those who paid $17.47 for a copy of “Pete Rose: My Prison Without Bars” and stood in a 15-minute line for an autograph and a few seconds of small talk with Rose, who lingered for about two hours.

The crowd did not rival that of a recent signing in Ridgewood, N.J., where Rose signed more than 1,500 copies over four hours, but sales of the book have been brisk nationwide. Released last Thursday with a first printing of 500,000, the 322-page book will claim the No. 1 spot on the New York Times’ list of best sellers for nonfiction hardcovers, to be released Jan. 25.

“It’s pretty exciting,” said Rick Hill, who wrote the book with Rose. “The reaction to the book has been phenomenal.”

A publicist for Rose declined an interview request by The Times, but Rose told the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times earlier this week that he has no regrets about writing and publicizing his book and was stung by the criticism he received upon its release.

“I don’t regret it at all,” Rose told the newspaper. “It was a chance for me to tell my story.”

Rose is hopeful of being reinstated in baseball and gaining eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

There was a consensus among those at Wednesday’s signing that Rose’s gambling admission was made now because his window of opportunity to be voted into the Hall by members of the Baseball Writers’ Assn. of America, thought to be more forgiving than the Veterans’ Committee, is closing. Players have until 20 years after retirement to be voted in by the writers; Rose retired in 1986.

“His ultimate motive is to get in the Hall of Fame, where I think he belongs,” said Robbie Kerr, 35. “The second motivation is money. He’s getting 17 bucks a pop.”

Hill said Rose is sorry for his transgressions, though he might not express his contrition in an open manner.

“He is not a warm and fuzzy guy,” said Hill, who spent three years with Rose writing the book. “Emotions do not come easily for him.... That’s why you do a book, to let the public decide based on that.”

Hill said getting Rose to show any vulnerability was the most difficult aspect of writing the book.

Rose achieved a breakthrough, Hill said, after the pair watched a scene from “Lethal Weapon” in which tough-guy actor Mel Gibson contemplated suicide.

“His lip started to quiver,” Hill said. “He saw that it was OK to show pain, that people wouldn’t judge him as weak.... He confessed to me [about the gambling] shortly thereafter.”

Poulos said Rose is sympathetic because he embodies a “great American story. He has everything, throws it away and doesn’t understand how it happened.”