These Days, Rose’s Life Has Few Hang-Ups

A little more than four years ago, Pete Rose was earning 11 cents an hour working in a prison machine shop in Illinois.

Now Rose is living the good life in Boca Raton, Fla., earning good money as a restaurateur and radio sports talk-show host.

Weekdays are pretty much the same. First, he drives his 10-year-old son, Tyler, to school. His daughter, Cara Chea, 5, sometimes rides along, since she attends the same private school. But she often has a dance lesson, gymnastics class or speech class before or after school, so her mother, Carol, usually takes her.

Cara Chea Rose, whom her father calls “very mature and a real knockout,” is an aspiring actress and is coming to Hollywood for a couple of months with her mother to develop her career.

After dropping off Tyler at school, Rose has time for a round of golf before going back to pick him up. The next stop is Rose’s Ball Park Cafe, a 16,000-square-foot restaurant in Boca Raton that has 60 television monitors, 65 video games and a studio from where Rose does his nationally syndicated talk show.

Rose, who on most days takes his son along, arrives at the restaurant between 4 and 5 p.m. and meets with his producer and co-host, Michelle Oaks, to begin formulating that night’s show. He’s on the air from 7 to 9 p.m., Eastern time.

The Southern California affiliate for Rose’s show, XTRA, doesn’t carry it until after midnight. If the station carried it live, which would be 4 to 6 p.m. on the West Coast, XTRA listeners would be able to talk to a sports legend rather than just another run-of-the-mill, ego-out-of-control sports talk-show host.

But under the current setup, Rose comes on right after the playing of the Mexican national anthem.

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Rose was in Los Angeles recently to tape an interview with Roy Firestone for an ESPN prime-time special that will be shown Jan. 21.

Afterward, Rose talked about the radio show he has been doing since March 9, 1992.

It started on a Florida network, then soon went national with the Katz Radio Group. Rose recently signed on the SportsFan Radio Network, which has 150 affiliates and is promoting the show a lot more heavily these days.

Rose’s show touches on a variety of topics.

“It’s definitely not just a baseball show,” he said. “I probably know more about football and basketball than I do baseball, and I know a lot about baseball.

“When you call my show, you’d better have your guns loaded and your facts straight.”

But Rose is patient with his callers. Someone who brings up his gambling or prison time is likely to get as much time as someone who heaps praise on Rose.

“I don’t hang up on anyone,” he said.

One thing different about Rose’s show is his penchant for telling callers to “go.” He’ll say to a caller from, say, Orlando: “Orlando go.”

“A lot of the time people don’t realize they’re on the air,” Rose said. “Go is just an abbreviated form of, ‘All right, you’re on the air, go ahead.’ ”

Some callers have complained that the go is annoying, and Rose has listened. “I’m not using it that much any more,” he said.

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Rose, talking about his life in general, said simply, “If I had it to do over again, there’d be no illegal gambling and I would pay my taxes.”

Rose was sentenced to five months in a federal prison in Marion, Ill., for cheating on his taxes. After serving his five months, beginning on Aug. 8, 1990, he spent three more months at a halfway house in Cincinnati and, as a community service assignment, assisting P.E. teachers at some of Cincinnati’s toughest high schools.

Was there ever a time he felt despair?

“No, not really,” he said. “I always maintained a positive outlook. I served my time without complaining or whining.”

Asked if he attends Gamblers’ Anonymous meetings, Rose said, “I went to four or five meetings. It really wasn’t for me. I was never down and out like the people that go to those meetings. I never lost all my money. I had some IRAs that I never cashed in.

“I was never really that big of a gambler. I’d read where I used to take $100,000 to the track. That’s ridiculous. I never took a briefcase to the track, and you sure couldn’t stuff $100,000 into your pocket.”

Rose, although banned from baseball because of his gambling, said his next goal is to make it into the Hall of Fame. And he’s convinced he will.

“When I do, I’ll make the longest acceptance speech in history,” he said. “I’ll spend a half hour thanking people and half a second blasting people.”

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Scheduling snafu: With North Carolina State having upset No. 1 North Carolina on Wednesday night, the importance of No. 2 UCLA’s games at Oregon and Oregon State rose significantly. But unfortunately Thursday night’s game at Oregon was not televised in Los Angeles.

Prime Sports, formerly Prime Ticket, showed USC at Oregon State.

“Of course we would love to do every UCLA and USC game if we could, but contractually we are obligated to do an equal number of UCLA and USC games live,” said Pat McClenahan, Prime’s new vice president of programming and production. “We work with the schools in predetermining the schedule before the season.”

The schedule makers, of course unaware that UCLA would be vying for No. 1 at the time, picked USC-Oregon State over UCLA-Oregon.

But the Bruins’ game at Oregon State on Saturday will be televised live by Channel 9 at 1 p.m. This is the first of a 14-game Pacific 10 package being carried by Channel 9. Six of the games involve the Bruins, including their home game against USC on Wednesday, March 1. All the other games in the Raycom package are on Saturday afternoons.

TV-Radio Notes

If both San Francisco and San Diego play host to conference championship games Jan. 15, look for the 49ers to play at 5 p.m. on Fox. . . . Playing the Orange and Sugar bowls on separate nights worked well. The Orange Bowl on Sunday got a national rating of 18.9, up from a 17.2 a year ago, and the Sugar Bowl on Monday got a 14.9, up from a 5.2. Other national bowl ratings won’t be out until next week. . . . Moving the Orange Bowl sure killed the poor Peach Bowl, also played Sunday night. It drew only a 1.8 rating on ESPN. Last year, the Peach Bowl got a respectable 3.2 rating.

The Orange Bowl lead-in helped Channel 4 get an 11.5 rating for Fred Roggin’s “Sports Bowl ‘94,” tops in its time slot. Roggin’s “Top Secret Television,” a network show that followed “Sports Bowl,” got a solid 8.5 L.A. rating. . . . Roggin returns from a two-week vacation Sunday. Backup Brett Lewis is also taking some time off. . . . Prime Sports’ new version of “Press Box” is on weeknights at 6:30 and 10:30. It expands to an hour on weekends, when it is on from 10-11 p.m.

ESPN2 has done some program shuffling, with Jim Rome’s “Talk2” going from 7:30 to 9 p.m. That’s fine for the West Coast, but that’s midnight in the East. . . . A one-hour retrospective of Roy Firestone’s “Up Close” shows will be shown by ESPN Saturday at 10 p.m. Again, that’s fine for the West Coast, but that’s 1 a.m. in the East. . . . John Goodman will serve as host of ESPN’s “ESPY Awards” show Feb. 13. . . . Timely series: “A Whole New Ballgame,” which makes its debut on ABC Monday at 8:30 p.m., stars Corbin Bernsen as Brett Sooner, an aging, striking baseball player who takes a job as a sportscaster at a Milwaukee television station. The show was created by the producers of “Coach.”

Mike Walden for years was one of the better known Los Angeles play-by-play announcers, doing both USC football and basketball and UCLA football and basketball for various television and radio outlets. He still does free-lance play-by-play football and basketball and announces tennis for Prime Sports. Last weekend he was at Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage to tape the National Collegiate Tennis Classic, which will be shown on Prime Jan. 29. But these days Walden may be best known for his role as a sportscaster on the “Super Dave Osborne Show.” The show, with a new format--it’s now a sitcom--and a new name--”Super Dave’s Vegas Spectacular”--makes its debut on the USA network Saturday at 10:30 p.m. and repeats Sunday at 6:30 p.m. The show still focuses on Osborne’s crazy stunts. Ring announcer Michael Buffer guest stars on Saturday’s show. A new member of the cast is Jennifer Grant, daughter of Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon. . . .

Walden and Osborne, whose real name is Bob Einstein, first got together in 1980. “I was working at KFI and got a call at the station from Bob, who introduced himself and asked if I was available to tape a show in a junkyard,” Walden said. “I thought someone from USC was playing a joke on me, but Bob sent a limo to my house to pick me up, so I went along with it even though I thought the whole thing was a gag.” It wasn’t a gag. . . . Einstein, 52, has a brother named Albert, who also changed his name for more obvious reasons. This Albert Einstein is now Albert Brooks, the comedian-actor-director.