1983 Game 3: This Time Rose Can't Hide the Hurt

The Phillies slammed the door on Pete Rose last night, leaving purple bruises deep inside that barrel chest of his.

Sat him down and stuck Tony Perez at first base, to face left-hander Mike Flanagan. Rose took the news like a guy who'd had his heart in the door when it slammed shut.

This is the World Series. Even Pete Dexter knows that. Rose has been in six of them, more than anybody else in this tournament. That's 31 October ballgames and Rose had started every one of them before last night.

"Hey, we're making progress," Rose said in the corridor, long after the O's had beaten the X's, 3-2, to take a 2-1 advantage. "At least he called me in and told me. "

Rose sometimes deals with disappointment by poking it with the sharp stick of sarcasm. For weeks, veterans grumbled about juggled lineups that caught them by surprise. This time, Paul Owens called Rose in at 4:15 and told him he wouldn't be starting.

It was a startling move, because there had been no warning, no whispered concern about the day game today that follows a night game, no mimeographed statistics to prove that Perez hit Flanagan exceptionally well while with Boston.

The uproar that followed surprised and angered Owens. "I don't know why it (the fuss) should be," Owens said. "The manager makes one move. There's nothing wrong with that.

"Why is it so big when you take Pete Rose out? I've got a guy (Perez), a right-handed hitter, who has seen the guy (Flanagan) a dozen times. I'm trying to get some offense in there; I figure it will help us. "

It is so big because Rose is a Hall of Fame player, who never had been asked to watch a World Series game before. It is so big because Rose has a way of reaching back for something extra in October.

"I thought about it," Rose confessed. "I was cool. But I walked back in and I told him that Flanagan was one guy I had seen, maybe three different games in spring training. That I had gotten some hits off him.

"But he said he wanted to get Sixto (Lezcano) up there (hitting second) and he wanted to get some offense in there, and the next game was a day game. "

Rose rolled his eyes toward the beak of an umpire's cap he was wearing. And then he spied plate umpire Al Clark heading for the press elevator.

"That pitch was inside, this far inside," Rose yelled, holding his hands 6 inches apart.

Owens had sent Rose up to pinch-hit for pinch-hitter Joe Lefebvre when the O's changed pitchers in the ninth, and Rose had taken two called strikes before bouncing out.

How hurt was Rose about the benching? Hurt enough to forget a detail of a ballgame, something he never does.

"The way the night turned out," Rose said, when surrounded by fidgety media earlier, "I wasn't as disappointed (being benched) as I was making the next-to-last out in the ballgame. "

It wasn't the next-to-last out, but who's counting. Certainly not Joe Morgan, the feisty little second baseman. Morgan dresses between Rose and Perez and he studied the awkward scene with blazing eyes. The writers were probing Perez about replacing Rose after Pete had zipped into an Olympic jacket and strutted out the door with his puzzled young son.

"We're trying to win a World Series and you're dealing with petty things," he screeched at the media mob. "This guy (Perez) is supposed to do his job.

"You don't want him to do a job? You don't want him to play? Buy your own club and play who you want. "

Perez nodded, embarrassed by the attention. He had singled, lined out twice, done what he could. And now, the questions snared him like cobwebs,

because there were no smooth answers.

"I know how Pete feels," Perez said. "I'm in the middle. But I can't do anything about it. I just have to go out and do my job. That's all I can do.

"That's the way the manager wants to do it. He wants to change the lineup, he don't have to tell nobody. "

Rose had done a brief interview with ABC-TV before the game, looking the way Duane Bobick looked after Kenny Norton demolished him in 56 seconds.

He said that he and Perez had to be the only two people surprised by the lineup switch. He said he was "embarrassed. "

Later, after the ballgame had ended, after the players began drifting out of their hiding places, Rose dressed quickly and spoke in shattered phrases.

"The manager," he said, "don't have to give you no reason why you're not playing. I learned that this year. He makes the lineup card out. That's why he's the boss.

"I didn't argue. You don't argue with the manager. All you guys who think the players are making out the lineup are wrong.

"I'm in there tomorrow. He told me so. "

Rose will be in there today against young right-hander Storm Davis. His long history shows he has problems with guys he is seeing for the first time, but the lineup switch makes sense if Rose was only going to play in one of the two games.

Rose hates the concept of resting. He wants to play every inning of every game. He thinks the way he was used this year eroded his king-sized confidence. If they think he's too heavy, too slow, he will do something about that this winter. He even has purchased a speed bag, and he will spend the winter preparing to punch out Father Time.

And then he will go to spring training and tug on some other uniform. Last night, he waved off all the questions about next year. Like Morgan, he knows there is a championship to be won. He pointed to his attorney, Reuven Katz, and referred questions about 1984 to him.

"I was surprised," Katz said of the benching. "But there's been a lot of surprises this year. That's one of the wonderful things about baseball; it's unpredictable. "

Katz was in an awkward spot too, because he also represents Perez.

"I'm one of the world's greatest specialists," he joked. "I represent two active players and they share first base for the Phillies.

"It (the benching) didn't say anything to me. I don't have to speculate. I'm here to watch a World Series. The Phillies have until the middle of November to decide.

"I'm sure they'll make up their minds and do something about it very promptly. "

Rose's cockeyed optimism can be contagious. Rose will be 43 next April, the extra-base sting seems to have vanished, he makes $1 million a year, he can only play first base, so who's going to be pounding on Katz's door?

"The same things I'm hearing in '83," Katz said, "I heard from, quote, astute, unquote, baseball men in '78 (when free agent Rose was overwhelmed by a bidding war). I'm confident there's going to be a lot of interest in him. "

In 1980 the Phillies were a team that wouldn't die. This year they are a team that wouldn't smile. They needed fresh controversy like they needed a torn rotator cuff. But let the record show that when Mike Schmidt and Owens argued on Labor Day the Phillies responded by scorching through September.

"Pete's in the lineup tomorrow," Perez said. "He's gonna be the same Pete Rose you've seen for years. It's not gonna affect him. He'll go out and play.

"He'll come in here, see his name in the lineup, he's gonna be as happy as ever."

ever."