
Charlie Hustle
The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball
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Narrated by:
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Ellen Adair
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Keith O'Brien
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By:
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Keith O'Brien
About this listen
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography
A captivating chronicle of the incredible story of one of America’s most iconic, charismatic, and still polarizing figures—baseball immortal Pete Rose—and an exquisite cultural history of baseball and America in the second half of the twentieth century • "Comprehensive, compulsively readable and wholly terrific."—The Wall Street Journal
"Long before the inquiry into Ohtani's ties to betting, there was Pete Rose....Charlie Hustle chronicles one of the most polarizing figures in sports."—NPR, All Things Considered
“Baseball biography at its best. With Charlie Hustle, Pete Rose finally gets the book he deserves, and baseball fans get the book we’ve been craving, a hard-hitting, beautifully-written tale that will stand for years to come as the definitive account of one of the most fascinating figures in American sports history.”—Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of King: A Life
Pete Rose is a legend. A baseball god. He compiled more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, a record he set decades ago that still stands today. He was a working-class white guy from Cincinnati who made it; less talented than tough, and rough around the edges. He was everything that America wanted and needed him to be, the American dream personified, until he wasn’t.
In the 1980s, Pete Rose came to be at the center of one of the biggest scandals in baseball history. He kept secrets, ran with bookies, took on massive gambling debts, and he was magnificently, publicly cast out for betting on baseball and lying about it. The revelations that followed ruined him, changed life in Cincinnati, and forever altered the game.
Charlie Hustle tells the full story of one of America’s most epic tragedies—the rise and fall of Pete Rose. Drawing on firsthand interviews with Rose himself and with his associates, as well as on investigators' reports, FBI and court records, archives, a mountain of press coverage, Keith O’Brien chronicles how Rose fell so far from being America’s “great white hope.” It is Pete Rose as we've never seen him before.
This is no ordinary sport biography, but cultural history at its finest. What O’Brien shows is that while Pete Rose didn’t change, America and baseball did. This is the story of that change.
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Critic reviews
Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post
"O'Brien's narrative gain[s] impressive authority from the depth of [its] research. . . . A thorough account of one of the most fascinating rags-to-riches-to-infamy sagas of twentieth-century celebrityhood at a time when baseball was central to America's story writ large." —The New Yorker
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Story
When Ball Four was published in 1970, it created a firestorm. Bouton was called a Judas, a Benedict Arnold and a “social leper” for having violated the “sanctity of the clubhouse.” Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying the book wasn’t true. Ballplayers, most of whom hadn’t read it, denounced the book. It was even banned by a few libraries. Almost everyone else, however, loved Ball Four.
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Three Ten Year Updates Give Bouton a 5th Star
- By Byron on 08-09-12
By: Jim Bouton
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The Last Manager
- How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball
- By: John W. Miller
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before the Moneyball Era, the Earl of Baltimore reigned over baseball. History’s feistiest and most colorful manager, Earl Weaver transformed the sport by collecting and analyzing data in visionary ways, ultimately winning more games than anybody else during his time running the Orioles from 1968 to 1982. When Weaver was hired by the Orioles, managers were still seen as coaches and inspirational leaders, more teachers of the game than strategists. Weaver invented new ways of building baseball teams, prioritizing on-base average, elite defense, and strike throwing.
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THE EARL OF BALTIMORE... ALWAYS A TREAT!
- By USA VETERAN on 03-21-25
By: John W. Miller
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The Boys of Summer
- The Classic Narrative of Growing Up Within Shouting Distance of Ebbets Field, Covering the Jackie Robinson Dodgers, and What's Happened to Everybody Since
- By: Roger Kahn
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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This is a story about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a story by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is the story about what happened to the team when their glory days were behind them.
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Classic book!
- By Christopher Arthur on 11-19-17
By: Roger Kahn
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The New York Game
- Baseball and the Rise of a New City
- By: Kevin Baker
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Baseball is “the New York game” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to life: the still-controversial, indelible moments—Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? Here are all the legendary players, managers, and owners, in all their vivid, complicated humanity, on and off the field.
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Sure.. Baseball… but so much more!
- By RAY MONTECALVO on 08-25-24
By: Kevin Baker
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A Damn Near Perfect Game
- Reclaiming America's Pastime
- By: Joe Kelly, Rob Bradford - contributor
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Baseball’s most outspoken fireballer brings the high heat—calling out the hacks, cheats, and ridiculous rules that have tarnished the game—and pitches A-plus stuff on how to make baseball pure, fun, and damn near perfect.
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Very good book on why baseball is a great game
- By LSmith on 04-18-25
By: Joe Kelly, and others
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Yogi
- A Life Behind the Mask
- By: Jon Pessah
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Lawrence "Yogi" Berra was never supposed to become a major league ballplayer. That's what his immigrant father told him. That's what Branch Rickey told him, too—right to Berra's face, in fact. Even the lowly St. Louis Browns of his youth said he'd never make it in the big leagues. Yet baseball was his lifeblood. It was the only thing he ever cared about. Heck, it was the only thing he ever thought about.
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"YOGI BERRA HITS A GRAND SLAM!"
- By USA VETERAN on 05-15-20
By: Jon Pessah
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The Inside Game
- Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves
- By: Keith Law
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking book, Keith Law, the ESPN baseball writer and author of the acclaimed Smart Baseball, offers an era-spanning dissection of some of the best and worst decisions in modern baseball, explaining what motivated them, what can be learned from them, and how their legacy has shaped the game....
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Narrator is negative value compared to replacement
- By Daniel W. Franzen on 11-28-20
By: Keith Law
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Why We Love Baseball
- A History in 50 Moments
- By: Joe Posnanski
- Narrated by: Joe Posnanski, Ellen Adair
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times bestselling author Joe Posnanski is back with a masterful ode to the game: a countdown of 50 of the most memorable moments in baseball’s history, to make you fall in love with the sport all over again. Posnanski writes of major moments that created legends, and of forgotten moments almost lost to time. It's Willie Mays’s catch, Babe Ruth’s called shot, and Kirk Gibson’s limping home run; the slickest steals; the biggest bombs; and the most triumphant no-hitters.
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Narration
- By Peter on 01-10-24
By: Joe Posnanski
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The 1998 Yankees
- The Inside Story of the Greatest Baseball Team Ever
- By: Jack Curry
- Narrated by: Jack Curry
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The visiting clubhouse in San Diego was soggy, sweaty and sticky after the 1998 Yankees swept the Padres in four games and celebrated winning their 24th World Series title. The players raised bottles of Champagne, sprayed the bubbly on each other and reveled in a baseball season that might have been more memorable than any in history. Jack Curry was part of that unforgettable scene as a reporter, navigating around the clubhouse to ask the same, pertinent question.
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Brings You Right Back
- By Smuckers on 04-25-25
By: Jack Curry
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The Arm
- Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Thing in Sports
- By: Jeff Passan
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Yahoo's lead baseball columnist offers an in-depth look at the most valuable commodity in sports - the pitching arm - and how its vulnerability to injury is hurting players and the game, from Little League to the majors.
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A MUST READ for every youth baseball parent and coach
- By Casey Fitzsimons on 05-29-16
By: Jeff Passan
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The Book of Joe
- Trying Not to Suck at Baseball and Life
- By: Joe Maddon, Tom Verducci
- Narrated by: Will Collyer
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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No one sees baseball like Joe Maddon. He sees it through his trademark glasses and irrepressible wit. Raised in the “shot and beer” town of Hazleton, PA, and forged by 15 years in the minors, Maddon over 19 seasons in Tampa Bay, Chicago, and Anaheim has become one of the most successful, most colorful, and most quoted managers in Major League Baseball. He is a workplace culture expert, having engineered two of the most stunning turnarounds in the past quarter century.
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Typical Joe
- By BG on 01-21-25
By: Joe Maddon, and others
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Yankees, Typewriters, Scandals, and Cooperstown
- A Baseball Memoir
- By: Bill Madden, Buck Showalter - foreword
- Narrated by: Gregory Abbey
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Before he'd covered dozens of World Series; before he'd written about countless hirings, firings, superstars, and scandals, Bill Madden was a cub reporter on one of his first assignments at Yankee Stadium—and manager Ralph Houk had just gone out of his way to spit tobacco juice all over Madden's shoes. “That’s Ralph’s way with rookie writers he doesn’t recognize,” came the explanation. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
By: Bill Madden, and others
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Sandy Koufax
- A Lefty's Legacy
- By: Jane Leavy
- Narrated by: Charley Steiner
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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No immortal in the history of baseball retired so young, so well, or so completely as Sandy Koufax. After compiling a remarkable record from 1962 to 1966 that saw him lead the National League in ERA all five years, win three Cy Young awards, and pitch four no-hitters including a perfect game, Koufax essentially disappeared. Save for his induction into the Hall of Fame and occasional appearances at the Dodgers training camp, Koufax has remained unavailable, unassailable, and unsullied.
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Baseball Favorite
- By Thomas on 04-21-14
By: Jane Leavy
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Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning
- 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City
- By: Jonathan Mahler
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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By early 1977, New York City was in the grip of hysteria caused by a murderer dubbed "Son of Sam". And on a sweltering night in July, a citywide power outage touched off an orgy of looting and arson that led to the largest mass arrest in the city's history. As the turbulent year wore on, the city became absorbed in two epic battles: the fight between Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson and team manager Billy Martin, and the battle between Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo for the city's mayoralty.
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Excellent
- By pp on 04-22-21
By: Jonathan Mahler
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The Football 100
- Sports Series, Book 1
- By: The Athletic, Dan Kaufman
- Narrated by: Jaime Lincoln Smith
- Length: 18 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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At The Athletic, home to the best newsroom in sports, this question would become a labor of love for dozens of the best football writers on the planet, including Mike Sando and Dan Pompei. Over the course of 100 riveting profiles—each drawing upon unparalleled access and superlative storytelling to offer intimate perspective on what made the greatest players tick—these writers reveal their findings. In the process, they also uncover the history of football.
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Many interesting stories of football greats
- By Donald J. Bentley on 02-16-25
By: The Athletic, and others
Well researched and written for interest and comprehension
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I was a freshman in college when he was banished from baseball.
I wish he would have had a relationship with God.
Sad life
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Let him into the HOF with an asterisk--just let him in.
[We, all, have asterisks.]
Tough listen--because I love Pete Rose:
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Really enjoyed the writers insight
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Not for those who want heroes
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A man of great ability and a terrible addiction
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Charlie Hustle, later known as the Hit King, had MLB itself as his biggest fan, and he lost that. Sadly, MLB and Baseball's Hall of Fame show little compassion today, and I don't see any change of heart for an increasingly frail old man who will turn 83 on 14 April.
Neither MLB or Cooperstown should waste time patting themselves on their collective backs over the nearly 34 years since that fateful year of 1989 - They have little to be proud of in several instances during their perspective Histories.
Rose will likely die outside the game he glorified with his hits, heart, and hustle - the game he still loves, sells, countless times, while setting many Major League and National League records along the way.
Charlie Hustle gambled away his game, and the Old Man now is all but out of time and forgiveness. That, to me, is particularly quite sad.
Well-written, and very fair. Good narration, too - A Solid Hit!
GRADE: A
SOLID STORY OF HUSTLE, WINNING, AND A SAD ENDING NOT QUITE OVER!
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His ego that couldn’t allow him to apologize.
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As such, and because it was positively reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, I bought this book, It is OK, but there really is nothing new here. Maybe the lapse of time since anything much was written about Pete, his gambling, and lifetime ban made this book seem fresh to some. Not to me. If I could give it three and a half stars, I would. It is competently written, but all of the source material was already mostly there. Pretty easy work.
Personally, I think a better angle would be one that is just discussed around the edges, which is the irony of Pete being banned for gambling, and for life, when all baseball and other sports do now is embrace all of the gambling sites and apps. If baseball believes gambling is a cardinal sin, then at least walk the walk and stay away from it. Yes, Pete broke the rules and lied about it, but maybe enough is finally enough, especially since FanDuel is the "Official Sports Betting Partner" of MLB.
A couple of additional nits. First, the author claims this book is well-sourced, and it appears to be. But he still repeatedly purports to know what people were thinking at various points in time. I don't know how you source someone's thoughts. Second, I thought the narrator did a good job, but the choice of a woman to narrate this book just seems a bit of an odd fit. Maybe that's old-fashioned, but it's how I see it.
OK, But I Don't Understand All the Fuss ...
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Narrator not appropriate
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