His own worst enemy 

Pete Rose is one of the best baseball players to ever don a ball cap in the major leagues. He is also a deeply polarizing figure with flaws aplenty.  

Both those things become abundantly clear during a viewing of the recent HBO documentary series Charlie Hustle & the Matter of Pete Rose (currently available on Crave in Canada). One more thing becomes apparent as you watch the show. It can’t be easy being Pete Rose’s lawyer. 

Jeffrey Lenkov, BA’87, a Los Angeles-based sports and entertainment attorney originally from Laval, has been working with Rose for about 10 years.  

Lenkov has represented just about every major sports franchise in LA (the Lakers, the Angels, the Kings, the Rams, the Chargers), as well as the Baltimore Orioles and the Texas Rangers (the Rangers recently gifted him with a World Series ring in appreciation of his work for them).  

He is one of the producers of Charlie Hustle and the show’s co-creator. He also appears in the series – occasionally voicing his frustration when Rose ignores his counsel.  

“It’s challenging to deal with a guy who often does not follow what is obviously the best straightforward advice,” says Lenkov. “I stick with him because at a very basic level I like Pete a lot despite his warts.” 

A longtime sports fan, Lenkov remembers being impressed by Rose as a player – not just for his skill, but for how hard he played.  

Rose’s nickname as a player, Charlie Hustle, might have stemmed from older players who mocked a young Rose for his exuberant, no-holds-barred style of play, but as one sportswriter notes in the documentary, “[Rose] wore it as a badge of honor. And he continued to wear it that way until it did become a badge of honor.” 

“He was someone I looked up to. He always gave it his all,” says Lenkov.  

I know just the guy 

Rose was also memorable for his personality. He was brash, frequently funny and rarely shy around a microphone (in later years that last trait wouldn’t always work in his favour). 

Lenkov had those qualities in mind about a decade ago when he found himself chatting to the vice-president of Fox Sports. 

“We were at a bar mitzvah, talking about his baseball coverage,” Lenkov remembers. “And I said your baseball show needs a Charles Barkley type to make it exciting – someone colourful and a little controversial. We started going through names and I said, ‘How about Pete Rose?’” 

Lenkov was quick to follow up on his idea. 

“I flew to Vegas, burst into a store where he was doing a signing, sat down next to him and said, ‘Look, I want to get you on a show on Fox.’” Once Rose determined that Lenkov was legit, he swiftly agreed. “We put a deal together, we put him on the show, and the show won an Emmy.” 

Banned from baseball 

At the time, Rose had been retired as a player for close to 30 years. And he had been banned from Major League Baseball (MLB) entirely since 1989.  

The ban was precipitated by an MLB investigation that concluded that Rose had placed bets on the outcomes of games involving the Cincinnati Reds, a team he had been managing when the bets were made.  

“He must now live with the consequences of those acts,” declared MLB commissioner Bart Giamatti when he announced the ban on Rose. (Rose would deny betting on baseball games for years before finally fessing up – he still insists he never bet against the Reds.) 

Lenkov continued to work with Rose, arranging a second TV deal that paired Rose with another baseball legend, Frank Thomas. Then Lenkov helped Rose get a book deal that resulted in the bestseller Play Hungry: The Making of a Baseball Player. 

Lenkov has been working on Rose’s behalf on another front. “As I got to know him, I realized that this guy, in spite of all the mistakes he has made, he deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and maybe through the contacts and the people that I know, I could make a difference.” The MLB ban has also prevented Rose from being inducted into the Hall – at least so far. 

Early on in Charlie Hustle, Rose proclaims, “You know, the Hall of Fame is all about stats. And I’m the stat machine.” And he’s got a point. 

He is baseball’s all-time hits leader with 4,256. He played 3,562 games (more than anyone else), reached base 5,929 times (ditto), and scored 2,165 runs (only five players in MLB history scored more). He won three batting titles during his career and played a key role in three World Series wins.  

And while the documentary successfully establishes Rose as one of his sport’s all-time greats, the picture it paints of him as a human being is much more complicated.  

“Pete is a unique character in that a lot of what he’s gone through in life was sort of self-inflicted.” 

Jeffrey Lenkov 

Aside from the betting, Rose also served a short prison stint for tax evasion. He has been accused of working with drug dealers to finance his gambling (which he denies) and of being sexually involved with a minor during his playing days (which he also denies). Throughout Charlie Hustle, he frequently comes across as evasive, insensitive and combative. When presented with an opportunity to apologize for some of the things he has done, he generally makes things worse. 

“Pete is a unique character in that a lot of what he’s gone through in life was sort of self-inflicted,” Lenkov observes during the documentary. 

Lenkov says the idea for the Charlie Hustle series originated when he realized that nothing like it had ever been done about Rose. He discussed the idea with a friend – actor Greg Grunburg (Felicity and Heroes, among other credits). Grunburg agreed to serve as a producer along with Lenkov and they brought the idea to Grunburg’s contacts at J.J. Abrams’s production company Bad Robot (Lost, Westworld).   

‘You can’t hide from the truth’ 

Lenkov says Charlie Hustle’s warts-and-all approach to Rose’s life was intentional. 

“It’s not compelling to do a puff piece on the hit king. That’s not what we wanted to do. If you are going to tell a story like this, and you’re going to do it legitimately, you can’t hide from the truth.” 

The series has earned positive reviews from TV critics. The New York Times called it “a refreshing antidote to today’s blizzard of sports documentaries produced by athletes’ own production companies, pumping out sanitized versions of their triumphant journeys.”  

What was Rose’s reaction? 

“I think Pete is pleased that he has a documentary on his life,” says Lenkov. “I think he understands it had to be truthful. At the same time though, it’s not flattering to bring up [some of these] stories.” 

Lenkov has his own views about why, in his words, “Pete keeps stepping on his own feet. 

“I think when you get to a level where you’re the greatest of all time in one area, and you’re told every day how great you are, there is a certain arrogance that can set in, along with a naivete about how the world will react to you. You think you always know what’s right and that’s dangerous because it can lead to mistakes.” 

As far as the Hall of Fame is concerned, there might be a glimmer of hope for Rose.  

The series includes footage of current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred speaking at a news conference, where he makes a distinction between being banned from baseball and from the Hall. 

“The fact that you should not be able to work or be involved in the game in a way that you [could] affect an outcome should not be the same test as to whether you should be in the Hall of Fame. It’s a museum after all. It is not a competitive undertaking.” 

“I do know on a personal level [Pete] is contrite about betting on baseball,” says Lenkov. “But that was so long ago. The fact that it’s still his scarlet letter is so unfortunate. Many people have done worse. At the end of the day, we’re not talking about someone who gave up nuclear secrets to the enemy. He shouldn’t be in purgatory his whole life.”