Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball

by Keith O'Brien Narrated by Ellen Adair, Keith O'Brien

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ¿ 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

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR ¿ WINNER OF THE PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY

“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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

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

“Vivid. . . . Charlie Hustle gets better and better as it builds to Rose’s ultimate downfall. . . . O’Brien ends his fantastic book in grand walk-off fashion, painting a brilliant, harrowing picture of Rose today.”
—The Washington Post

“O’Brien has crafted a sort of American tragedy . . . . [He] deftly builds suspense and narrative friction.”
—The New York Times

"I’m not sure there’s ever been a book that does a better job of sketching out [Pete Rose] than Keith O’Brien’s...comprehensive, compulsively readable and wholly terrific."
—Wall Street Journal

“Pete Rose remains one of baseball’s most infamous figures—both legend and pariah. Featuring extensive interviews with Rose himself, O’Brien’s definitive biography chronicles Rose’s extraordinary rise and his fall from grace.”
—Esquire

"Meticulous. . . . Engaging. . . .The timing couldn’t be better to pick up Charlie Hustle.”
—Commonwealth

“[An] epic about hubris and, in the figure of the disgraced Cincinnati Red, moral vacancy.”
—Chicago Tribune

“As much as many fans of the game want to forget this sordid tale, Keith O'Brien reminds us of its centrality to the story of our National Pastime. It's a dazzling, soaring accomplishment, a counterpoint to the tragic fall of one of the game's greatest, brought on entirely by his own hubris, arrogance and insolent disregard for baseball's stern code.”
—Ken Burns

“Pete Rose's epic life demands the epic treatment, and Keith O'Brien marvelously takes on the challenge. He captures the dizzying heights and calamitous lows but even more, finds the humanity of the man who lived a sports life unlike any other.”
—Joe Posnanski, New York Times bestselling author of Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

“I’ve never liked Pete Rose. I'm not sure many people have liked Pete Rose. But he also may well be the most fascinating pro athlete of the last century. And that's what makes Keith O’Brien's richly reported, beautifully written Charlie Hustle so damn good. It's riveting. It's engrossing. And, like Rose, it's impossible to ignore.”
—Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Folk Hero

“Charlie Hustle is a thoroughly-reported, up-to-date account of a tragic American sports star. Keith O’Brien takes us through the highs and lows of Pete Rose’s rise and fall. Even if you think you already know it all, read this book. This is powerful new stuff.”
—Dan Shaughnessy, New York Times bestselling author of Francona

“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

“Sports biographies don’t get much better than this enthralling and tragic account. . . . Definitive and elegantly told, this is a home run.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Brilliant. . . . A gripping portrait. . . . [Charlie Hustle] leaves little doubt that the definitive account of the life and times of [Pete] Rose belongs to O’Brien. A masterpiece of a sports biography and a must-read for baseball fans.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2023-10-21
An award-winning journalist tells the story of a baseball player who exhibited relentless hustle on and off the field.

O’Brien, the author of Fly Girls and Outside Shot, delivers a gripping portrait of fellow Cincinnati native Pete Rose (b. 1941). The author paints a vivid portrait of the simultaneously glorious and reckless life of Major League Baseball’s hit king, whose raw strength and work ethic symbolized baseball and the American dream itself, yet who gambled his way permanently out of baseball and its Hall of Fame, leaving a wake of bitter disappointment as he sped through life with the same air of tenacious invincibility that marked his play. O’Brien’s meticulous style captures Rose’s unlikely journey to his hometown Reds and his often complex relationships with teammates and opponents alike. Rose won every conceivable honor that a position player can win, but his addictions to gambling, women, and expensive cars belied his all-American image. O’Brien’s construction of the book is brilliant, offering a thorough examination of Rose as a sort of baseball Janus: Rose took the mocking sobriquet given to him by Yankee royalty Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford as a badge of honor and never yielded on the field, but he conducted himself off the diamond as Charlie Hustler, a man who invited a rogues’ gallery of hangers-on, gamblers, and drug dealers to his inner circle and ultimately doomed his legacy. O’Brien’s work is so well researched and adheres to traditional journalistic standards in such a way that it is, by any objective measure, as fair as possible to all the principle figures, particularly Rose himself, whom the author interviewed several times. The text leaves little doubt that the definitive account of the life and times of Rose belongs to O’Brien.

A masterpiece of a sports biography and a must-read for baseball fans.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159570956
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/26/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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