“Charlie Hustle” by Tom Gumbrecht

Pete Rose was, and is, of course, a legendary baseball player who spent most of his Major League career at first base for the Cincinnati Reds. He seemed to me to always give 150%, and his nickname, "Charlie Hustle", could only begin to suggest the immense dedication, intensity, motivation, and pure skill, talent and athleticism that makes his name synonymous with all of those character traits. On the field, he must have been a great teammate to have.

Off the field it was certainly a different story. He seemed unable to stay out of trouble. He carried with him the appearance of a brash, cocky, self-absorbed man and his infamous dabblings in illegal gambling caused the World Series MVP winner untold problems. Off the field, I think maybe he might have been a guy that would be difficult to be friends with. But no matter how much it would be said about his darker side, I include myself in the sizable group that still reveres his name as the ultimate go-getter, and his talent and motivation as something to be awed.

Recently, I’ve been on a weather-imposed hiatus from my normal training schedule with my young paint horse DannyBoy. Danny and I compete in local horse trials. Frozen footing and other cold-weather miseries always curtail our training for a month or two, but this winter has been especially harsh. I have fortunately been able to get in a ride or two at a local barn with an all-weather footing. When I am able to do that, and we can shake the cobwebs off and get our bodies and minds (my body, his mind) back on track, we are able to reassert our bond and partnership, and find our rhythm as a team. When this happens, it always occurs to me how much he reminds me of Pete Rose.

DannyBoy is a natural athlete. His natural instincts have saved my hide in so many circumstances I've lost count. He gives and gives and gives until he just can't give anymore. He just so...exuberant. He loves to work, loves his job. I'm convinced he would walk through fire for me, for us, for the team...he is just so willing and giving that sometimes I get chills at the responsibility of managing such devotion. That is, in the arena.

Out of the arena, he's our little backyard farm's bad boy. He's into everything. Snatching blankets off the other horses backs, running around the paddock with the sweater you foolishly left on tack trunk streaming out of his teeth..until he tramples it...it's all in a day's work. He been known to remove a bungee-corded fire extinguisher from the wall and hurl it into the paddock, nip at the jacket of an unsuspecting visitor...bite at the flank of a pasturemate...try to douse me with the bucket of hot water I’m carrying through the icy paddock for HIS bran mash….all just a sampling of his off-field persona. If I foolishly leave any aisle door unbolted, the aisle will, with complete certainly, look as if a tornado had gone through. And Danny will be standing in the portal with the requisite "who, me?" look after he's been discovered. He's a bull in a china shop. A goofball. A nimrod. The vet calls him a "goon".

In show season, his little antics lessen as his mind becomes occupied with other things, and when he thinks up some mischief, he might be just tired enough so as to not carry it out. His wonderful demeanor under saddle more than makes up for his antics, which at once seem almost endearing. When he’s tacked up, he immediately transforms into a keen, alert, responsive performance machine. He is all business. He knows his job and just goes out and does it. He’s Pete Rose with his uniform on.

In the off season it seems like we get all of the bad with none of the good. His youthful exuberance and his devilish ways of expressing it can grow tiring. I can hear my mother’s admonishments from my youth, “It’s all a big joke until someone gets hurt…..” echoing through my mind. Enough already! Just when I think we can't take another day of it, one morning when I’m walking to the barn I see a crocus emerging by the fence near the water trough. I hear the song of a single bird, then a few more. Then the blankets come off, the ring starts thawing, the tractor starts dragging, the jumps go up and we're back to doing the things that made me love him in the first place.

Well, he's not really Pete Rose. We're not the Cincinnati Reds, and this isn't the World Series. A better analogy perhaps would be of the little league star who gives his all for the team, and when not on the field drives his parents crazy with blowing up stuff, prank phone calls, schoolyard scrapes and detention.
Everybody knows one. I've got one. And in a few weeks, I’m sure I’ll remember that I wouldn’t have it any other way.