Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357092
EAN num: 9780803289642
ISBN number: 0803289642
Label: University of Nebraska Press
Manufacturer: University of Nebraska Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 344
Printing Date: February 01, 1997
Publishing house: University of Nebraska Press
Sale Popularity Level: 1245640
Studio: University of Nebraska Press
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Product Description:
Collision at Home Plate is a dual biography of Pete Rose, an uncouth but great ballplayer who suffered disgrace and imprisonment, and Bart Giamatti, the baseball commissioner so deeply shaken and bruised by the Rose scandal that he died a week after it was made public. This is the definitive book on one of the most traumatic and tragic episodes in baseball history.
Amazon.com Review:
Had there been just a little less chaos abroad in the universe, the lives of Pete Rose and A. Bartlett Giamatti might have kept on parallel tracks to infinity, blissfully out of the way of each other's extremes. Rose, baseball's most primitive outlaw since Cobb, and Giamatti, the Renaissance scholar who presided over Yale before taking on the comissionership of the national pastime, could not have been more different. Rose was arrogant, profligate, libidinous, and excessive; Giamatti was courtly, erudite, philosophical, and, in his way, every bit as excessive. Baseball hurled them into each other, and when it pitted them face to face over allegations of Rose's gambling, the pyrotechnics roared like cymbals clashing in a silent night.
The story of that clash is one of baseball's blackest moments, with no winner anywhere, and Reston replays it in all of its grim, grisly detail. Rose, the accused, was, of course, banned from the game for life; Giamatti, the accuser, died of a heart attack just days after the banning. But Reston isn't satisfied to simply play out the endgame confrontation of the sinner and the standard bearer, and that's the brilliance of his book; he entwines their complex and fascinating biographies in a way that makes their collision seem tragically, almost surreally, inevitable. Each man was failed by his flaws, and it's the flaws that made each personality so compelling.
Still, it was their very failures of character that slapped each with a fate neither would have willingly chosen: Rose the unpenitent outcast, Giamatti the eternal martyr. The Rose case, writes Reston, 'elevated (Giamatti) to heroic stature in America. By banishing a sport hero, he became a moral hero to the nation.' The final irony is that the gregarious Giamatti, who indeed relished the role of moral hero, didn't live to experience his own apotheosis. --Jeff Silverman
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Rated by buyers 
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An important story and a modern tragedy, told in a highly readable manner. As a big fan of Pete Rose in his playing days, I initially thought James Reston was unfairly biased against Rose through many parts of the book. After finishing it, I think he probably struck the right balance, as there is simply no excuse for much of what Rose did off the field. Reston almost but did not quite fall into the trap of deifying Giamatti; he was, after all an extraordinary commissioner unlike baseball had ever seen. But Reston correctly pointed out that Giamatti bungled the investigation of Rose from a due process and fairness point of view, and if the matter had gone to trial Giamatti would have had a very difficult time on the stand.
The real point is that Giamatti did investigate, and he did take action. Even with the "settlement" that did not answer the question of whether Rose bet on baseball, Giamatti felt no constraint against offering his own opinion as to Rose and his betting on baseball. And Rose did bet on baseball. We can learn from Giamatti. How refreshing it would be to have a commissioner who would take on the steroids scandal which has made a mockery of home run records and likely changed the outcome of far more games and pennant races than gambling ever did. Where is the courage to have a thorough investigation, and a commissioner who would speak the truth?
Unfortunately, baseball has been a silent partner in the steroids scandal, happily banking the proceeds of increased attendance pursuant to amazing and superhuman home run derbys. I don't think Bart Giamatti would approve, and I would like to think he would acted to protect the integrity of baseball.
Finally, I agree with Reston's take on the Hall of Fame issue. Let the sportswriters vote. If they say yes to Rose, tell Rose's story in a display at the hall, the good and the bad. Especially the bad. And do the same for those whose steroid-enhanced records make them "worthy" of consideration in the future.
Rated by buyers 
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Interesting idea but ultimately the book fails. The contrast between Giamatti, a man of ideas, and Rose, a man of action -- both flawed in different ways should have made a fascinating read. Instead, the book plods along until the final 50 pages when it begins to redeem itself.
Giamatti's life was just not that compelling and the ponderous quotes from his writings makes one wonder if anyone actually understood Giamatti's abstruse points.
Rose, by contrast, had a more one-dimensional life but emerges as the more interesting person.
It would have been better if Reston had focused on the years of conflict between the two and flashed back to past biographical events to explain how the actions taken by the principals were shaped by those past events. Had Reston examined why Rose handled the pressure better than Giamatti would have been a shorter, tighter and punchier book. Writing chronologically slowed the book down and I was glad to have reached the end and be done with it.
The author's reseach is quite good although trivial errors (Dick Cavett's wife is Carrie Nye, Whitey Ford coined the nickname "Charley Hustle"), are annoying.
I expected more.
Rated by buyers -
The book is an interesting biography of two very different people.
Pete Rose is a real jerk. The guy could play baseball, but that's it.
As a person, he is a jerk.
As least he will never get into the baseball hall of fame. If Pete Rose got into that sacred place, it would be a shame.
Rated by buyers 
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I never finished it. I wanted to read a story of Pete Rose's suspension from baseball and instead got a history of Giamatti's life.
If you aren't a diehard, you may want to give this one a miss.
Rated by buyers -
An excellent profile of two persons striving to be outstanding in their field (no pun intended). It shows how talented players who were friends of Rose melted into other professions, lacking the single-minded drive that he had.
I want my daughter to read it because it's also an excellent profile of eastern private schools and the politics of getting admitted, being a student and professor. Reston believes that both men at their peak represented the best of their profession. (I can't tell my daughter that's the other side that she'd find interesting because it would be as well-received as a lecture.)
The book goes through the childhood of both men and their professional development. The details on Rose's gambling are convincing: you literally see how Pete self-destructed. I think that it was a cab driver who sums up how Pete could have saved himself right up to the end (the paraphrasing is mine: "apologize, indicate that he'd never bet for or against Cincinnati, and gotten away from gamblers") but was so ego-centric that he was self-destructive. As for betting on the Reds, it's clear that he did.
A well-told story, but Reston is not as crisp a writer as his father. His transitions are often awkward, leaving you wondering what topic he's on. And there's a factual error so glaring that I wondered how a sportswriter or editor could let it get by -- he refers to the Chicago Cubs as the "Southsiders."
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