Kuzul

Pete Rose, baseball's giant who seems destined to be on the outside looking in, will premiere his TLC reality series with fiancee, Kiana Kim. The show, entitled Pete Rose: Hits and Mrs., follows the former Cincinnati Reds superstar who continues to fight his lifetime ban from the game of baseball. This being a TLC reality/TV series, you know things are not nearly as simple as that. Below is a primer on all things Pete Rose, brought to you by an interview from the network. Thankfully, it's candid and introspective. From there, we get a look into the mind of man who bet on the game, and I will bet you could see some more of this legend who is broken in a lot of ways. Well, you get just that starting on Sunday at 10 p.m. with a two-episode sneak preview. The show will then be run again on Monday at the same time—its regular time ...

When the 2013 Yankee season begins, Derek Jeter's magic number to break Pete Rose's all-time hit record will be at 953. Following Jeter's league-leading 216-hit 2012 season, suddenly Pete's hit record is within vision of the Yankee captain—at triple digits. At 3,304 hits, Derek Jeter is 77.6 percent of the way home to setting a new all-time hit record.No doubt about it, 953 hits is still a long way to go for Derek Jeter. When the season begins, Derek will be 38 years of age. The sceptics will bring the proverbial clock into play, when scoffing at Jeter's chances. But, is that clock really moving too fast for Derek, given his tireless work ethic and proven track record?Pete Rose, at approximately the same age as Jeter is now, played another seven seasons to get his final 884 hits.  To Rose's advantage, as manager later in his career, he had the option of inserting himself into the ...

Pete Rose sees you, Derek Jeter.Jeter isn't looking like a 38-year-old player this season. Typically, 38-year-olds don't hit .326, and they certainly don't lead the league in hits. The New York Yankees' ageless shortstop is doing both at the moment.Jeter already has more hits this season than he had in all of 2011, a year in which he finally crossed the 3,000-hit plateau. That now feels like ancient history, as Jeter is sitting on 3,255 career hits and is quickly moving up the rankings on the list of players with the most hits in baseball history.The man at the top is watching Jeter's ascent very closely.Rose, whose 4,256 career hits still top the charts, told The New York Times recently that he never misses a chance to watch Jeter.“I’ll watch him tonight,” he said. “I watch him every night.”He should be. Jeter is only 1,001 hits away from tying Rose's all-time mark, ...

When it first counted, it did seem a decent idea.Major League Baseball had a terrible way to award home-field advantage for the World Series. MLB simply alternated home-field advantage between the National League and American League every year.  The NFL is again the leader of the sporting leagues with their neutral-site Super Bowl showcasing one American city a year. The NBA and the NHL play in a playoff-series format, just like the MLBs, so neutral sites would not work over seven games. In the NBA and NHL, the team with the better regular season record gets the home-site advantage. That is what Major League Baseball needs to do: make World Series home-field advantage about regular-season records. You guys play 162 of them; shouldn't those count for something? It is always about ulterior motives, and the national pastime, under the reign of Bud Selig, has become riddled with hidden agendas. Fox wants to have the ratings the MLB All-Star Game ...

Playing Rough Something you hear a lot about from fans is the lack of an "old-school" mentality in the modern game of baseball.While many of the proponents of the so-called "old-school" are too young to know anything about it, there is some truth to the idea that the game was more hard-nosed in days gone by. Whether this is a good or bad thing is open to debate (that's what we're here for, after all). With injury concerns and millions of dollars at stake, with careers and long-term health on the line, we have seen less and less of the violent action that, in our sepia-toned memories, once punctuated the game with much greater frequency. Collisions at Home Plate Recently, the focal point of these debates has been collisions at home plate.Talented young catcher Buster Posey broke his leg blocking the plate and missed all but a few weeks of ...

Pete Rose had no choice. In the 12th inning of the 1970 All-Star game, Rose bowled into American League catcher Ray Fosse to score the winning run. "He was doing his job but it was my job to score," Rose told reporters as he lay on the training table with his left knee packed in ice. Continuing, the gutsy Rose said, "If I can change the score, I'm not going to worry about getting hurt." Rose was quite concerned about Fosse. He, Sudden Sam McDowell, Fosse's Cleveland Indians' teammate and Rose had dined at Fosse's home the night before the game. Friends don't stop winners from trying to win. "We just talked baseball and Sam played the guitar. They're both great guys," said Rose. After the game, Rose called the American League clubhouse to ask about Fosse.  He was told that Fosse was sent to the hospital to have X-rays ...

In the sixth game of the 1917 World Series, New York Giants' third baseman Heine Zimmerman was forced to chase Eddie Collins of the Chicago White Sox toward an uncovered home plate. Photographs revealed that Zimmerman was a mere step or two behind Collins, who slid across the plate as Zimmerman jumped over him to avoid a collision. The White Sox won the game and the World Series. There was a public outcry about the play, the Series and Zimmerman.  There were accusations that Zimmerman had allowed Collins to score.  In 1919, Zimmerman and Hal Chase were banned from baseball based upon their long records of corruption.  Pete Rose is suspended from baseball forever. That the 1919 World Series was fixed is common knowledge. The Cincinnati Reds became world champions, but we will never know if that would have occurred if the Chicago White Sox had played fair and square. ...

Baseball is the great American game. How fitting it is that almost one year ago, baseball's all-time hit leader gave advice to the pitcher many considered to be the greatest right-hander of all time?Roger Clemens' trial for perjury is scheduled for July 6, 2011. Clemens is accused of lying to Congress, which is a terrible thing to do. Of course, those who have the right connections or have an agenda that those in power must have executed can lie to Congress with impunity, as Glenn Greenwald revealed in a 2007 article (Lying to Congress).At an autograph show, which included baseballs inscribed, "I'm sorry I bet on baseball,” Pete Rose told the media he had some simple advice for Clemens. The best thing Clemens could do is to come clean. Rose explained his position."I wish I had come clean the day they had called me into the [commissioner's] office in 1989—I ...

To the surprise of no one, the recent Barry Bonds perjury trial ended with a result that satisfied neither party and only really succeeded in stirring up another round of PED-related articles.  One of the most common type article to enter the fray is how the Hall of Fame will view such candidates; after all, Bonds (and others guilty/suspected of usage) put up some impressive numbers during his career.  Some writers are calling for the Hall of Fame to establish new guidelines on voting procedures for the next election; others are calling for an outright ban of all PED users. Both of these ideas strike me as rather unnecessary.  I mean, isn’t it the job of the HOF voters to decide who is worthy of induction?  Besides, a lot of the arguments that are being used against PED users don’t really hold water—and could set a serious double-standard when it comes to past ...

The scars of MLB's recent past are beginning to heal and fade. The Steroids Era is growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.It's been over six years since Major League Baseball was first embarrassed on Capitol Hill in the "steroids hearings" of March 2005. Over three years have passed since the release of the Mitchell Report.Despite the march of time, there are still a handful of retired MLB stars who, well, we simply wish would just go away—Jose Canseco and Roger Clemens among them.These players, whether we liked them or not, earned headlines during their playing days for just that—playing the game of baseball and playing it very well.Now, in retirement, they grab headlines from time to time for all of the wrong reasons—not only adding further public embarrassment to their already tarnished images but, often, also bringing further shame to a sport that is increasingly gaining momentum in ...