Pete Rose personifies the meaning of hometown hero for the Cincinnati Reds. Perhaps more so than any other sports figure in any other city.
Even the red hue of his last name Rose marks the DNA that will forever identify Rose and the Reds with the city of Cincinnati.
Rose was a product of Cincinnati in every sense of the word. The three-day tribute this past weekend at Great American Ball Park to Rose and the Big Red Machine showed it. Rose’s legacy as Cincinnati’s legendary native son is now finalized.
Rose is part of the Reds’ Hall of Fame. He also lived to see his No. 14 retired by the team. Despite his personal shortcomings, Rose finally was honored in full by the Reds.
Unfortunately for the Reds and their fans, the 2016 Reds had to play three games around the tribute to Rose. The diametric opposite of the Big Red Machine lost two of the three games to a sub-.500 team.
The current Reds are on an historically bad pace. There couldn’t be a starker contrast between the Reds’ glory years of the 1970’s and the current Reds.
The Reds will find any uphill climb back to relevancy on the field hard to come by. Small market teams like the Reds can win and thrive. The lack of a salary cap, however, puts the Reds at a disadvantage to sustain contention over the long term.
That’s part of the reason why Rose is even more special for the Reds. The meaning of the Reds to a native son like Rose was on full display during the tribute to him.
Fellow native sons Barry Larkin and then the Cincinnati-raised offspring of the Big Red Machine in Ken Griffey, Jr. followed Rose’s native son lead on the field.
Larkin looks like the only Reds’ native son left who can help the team write the next great chapter in franchise history. But he would have to agree to become manager of a very bad team in order to even try to fill the void left in the wake of Rose.
Robb Hoff writes about the Cincinnati Reds for OutsidePitch MLB. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
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