Five favorite Pete Rose cards that you don't think of as Pete Rose cards

 

Today is Pete Rose's 81st birthday.

Rose has made many questionable decisions in his life, but he's an undeniable key figure in my formative years of watching baseball. As I've said before, outside of Reggie Jackson, he was the most-talked-about, most-viewed player, from the time I realized what baseball was, through the mid-1980s when I decided I didn't need to collect cards anymore because they were for babies.

Rose was conversation in my house among everyone, which is exclusive company because 1) my mom didn't care about baseball at all, and 2) my dad didn't discuss anyone who wasn't on the Red Sox unless he didn't like the player. Yet the whole household had an opinion on Rose.

So you had me and my brothers disliking the guy, and my dad, too, and my mom shrinking in her chair when his Aqua Velva commercials came on. That's how you know you've made it.

To this day, Rose is in the top 10 of the number of cards I have a player who never played for the Dodgers. Here's the updated list now:

1. Mickey Mantle - 142 cards

2. Nolan Ryan - 124

3. Reggie Jackson - 120

4. George Brett - 107

5. Mike Schmidt - 102

6. Carlton Fisk - 88

7. Pete Rose - 83

8. Dwight Gooden - 82

9. Cal Ripken Jr. - 82

10. Robin Yount - 79

Please note that the first seven guys on that list, except for Mantle, are all connected to the '70s. That's because I actively attempt to collect cards from the '70s. Mantle just forced his way in there because Topps thinks everybody should like him the best (I will admit to desiring and obtaining his 1956 card but nothing else in my collection).

 

The 1985 Donruss Pete Rose card arrived with the '83 Donruss Rose from Doc's Sports Card Sales, which is a Twitter account in which Lanny offers up cheaply priced desirables periodically.

 

The '83 and '85 Donruss appearances are early signs that I need to start thinking about collecting those sets. Might as well get some big names out of the way.

 

Here are two more that came with the Roses, another '83 and '85 Donruss. I know McGee isn't a tough card to obtain, but it's his rookie card, he was a big deal in 1983 and I've always liked him. I'll take his cards over Sandberg's every time, which means each time I have to pay more than buck for a Sandberg card I'm annoyed.

 

But getting back to Rose, there are several of his cards that are momentous in my collection. His '75, '76, '77, '78 and '79 Topps cards all have their own stories in my grade-school life and there are even some cards that I don't own (anymore) -- such as his '69 Topps card -- that I can tell tales about, too. Throw in that '79 Burger King Rose, the '86 Topps set-starters, the '82 Fleer Pete And Re-Pete and anything in an Expos uniform and Rose's impact is undeniable even as MLB keeps ignoring him (while inviting gamblers to go ahead and bet on its games. WTF?)

 

So I'm not going to show those very-much-loved cards. Here, instead, are five favorite Rose cards that you probably don't think of as Rose cards:

 

 Oh, I like this one a lot. I've written about this one a lot. On two blogs.

Rose is making the cameo as is the dog in the Alpo advertisement. It's practically genius placement.

I'm still disgusted that Topps condensed its World Series cards from one-per-game to a single one to sum up the entire series, just in time for one of the greatest Series of my life.

But it does make for an impressive card. Pete is down in the lower left with another opposite-field hit. He hit a lot of those during his MVP showing in the '75 World Series.

 

Rose coming to the Phillies was a big deal for a couple of years and just in time for Fleer to make random cards of players gathered together.

Fleer was doing it again three years later. This is during peak Wheeze Kids time. Rose is the only one still standing. (Tony Perez is alive! He's ALIVE!)

An outstanding card.

This was Charley Hustle, booking every chance he was on base. I love that both Larry Bowa and Garry Maddox are in the photo. The '76 NLCS wasn't much to write home about, especially if you rooted for the Phillies, but it made a nifty card in the '77 Topps set.

I admit that every single time Rose was in a Reds uniform, and much of the time when he was in a Phillies uniform, I wanted his team to lose. (One of the lone exceptions was the 1983 World Series and that didn't work out too well).

Happy birthday to the guy who used to show up on the field and during every commercial break when I was 12. There's something about an Aqua Velva man.