The park in Sedamsville already had been known as Pete Rose Park for nearly as long as Cincinnati’s first son of baseball had become a fixture in the Big Red Machine lineup.
It’s where Rose’s father, Harry Francis “Pete” Rose, played smash-mouth football into middle age, once running down an opponent for a game-saving tackle after breaking his hip during the game, according to family legend.
Tin and wooden signs have come and gone at the ballfield at Boldface Park. But the identity of the place is rooted in decades of civic pride and history.
“That’s the thing,” Pete Rose Jr. said. “If you say Boldface or if you say Pete Rose Park, if you’re from this way (west), over from the city, you know exactly where you’re going.”
So when the Cincinnati Reds and local officials partnered to dedicate the spot Wednesday with the presentation of a new permanent marker (which was actually a demo for the ceremony) on the day the Reds celebrated Pete Rose Day, it was more symbolic than substance, more past than prologue.
Besides, what mattered most to Rose’s family and fans on this day is what the past day meant for the next three years.
“It’s great,” Pete Rose Jr. said, “just to have the opportunity. All you can say is you’re nothing but thrilled.”
Rose Jr.’s older sister, Fawn Rose, shed tears when she got the phone call Tuesday while boarding a plane in Seattle, where she lives, for Wednesday’s events in Cincinnati honoring her father.
“I think my kids thought somebody had died,” she said.
Her five-month effort to have her father’s permanent ban from baseball lifted by commissioner Rob Manfred was made official with Tuesday’s announcement, 36 years after Rose was banned, 7 1/2 months after his death and about two weeks after the family heard “rumblings” that the news they’d hoped for was coming.
“I just wish he were here to be able to celebrate with the fans,” Fawn Rose said. “He always would get excited when he was coming in to do something or to talk to people.
“I was just asked whether I ever get sick and tired of hearing stories from fans,” she said. “And I don’t. Because each story is different. Because it shows that my dad took the time to listen and he remembers.
“Each story was real, and every time I hear somebody say something, I’m like, yeah, I’m really proud that I’m his kid because he really did care about his fans.”
Pete Rose took both of his oldest kids, Fawn and Pete Jr., to play at that ballfield at Boldface Park when they were kids, and the rainy, mournful weather played across the grain of the upbeat ceremony.
‘Brutal,’ Pete Jr. said when considering that the lifting of his father’s ban came as an almost inevitably posthumous action. ‘That’s the thing. They made a decision, which was great. But it’s not going to bring dad back.
‘It’s the human-element part, to where I’m still processing not having a dad. It’s not even been a year yet,’ he said. ‘I understand what kind of magnitude, what kind of player he was, but we’re talking about Dad. And that’s the hardest thing.’
That doesn’t mean Manfred’s decision wasn’t profoundly meaningful for Rose’s family, despite the circumstances.
‘I think he’s probably smiling down knowing that his grandkids and his kids are here and what it means to us, because it is our legacy,’ Fawn Rose said. ‘And we’re very proud of who he is.’
Whatever comes next.
Rose Jr. won’t speculate on his dad’s chances for induction, says he’s not even sure how it works.
“But I know what he did on the field, and I know how much he loved baseball,” he said. “I know how much he loved giving back and playing for the fans and doing stuff in the community and being around. So it’s a no-brainer for me.
“But we’re happy. We’re going to remain optimistic and everything. If it happens, great. If it doesn’t it doesn’t,” he said. “We can’t control anything. But I think it’d be a great day for not only the Rose family but the Cincinnati Reds family, and the city of Cincinnati.”
And if it doesn’t happen? If he’s still kept out of the Hall of Fame when his first turn for possible election comes in December 2027 with that year’s Eras Committee vote?
Fawn Rose said her meeting with Manfred in December and petition in January was as far as the family planned to pursue reinstatement.
“If the commissioner’s decision would have been (to deny the petition), then I think we would have let it go,” she said. “I’m happy the way it turned out. And I just wish Dad was here to celebrate it and feel the emotion involved in that and what it would mean to him.”