All people in this story are at least 18 years of age
I'm from Cincinnati. In the summer of 1985, the buzz in the city was over the Reds' Pete Rose.
Rose had been re-acquired by the Reds in a trade with Montreal the previous August and owner Marge Schott immediately named him player/manager. Rose, a Cincinnati guy, had been signed by the Reds in 1960 and debuted for them three years later and was part of the Big Red Machine which won World Series championships in 1975 and 1976. For nearly two decades, "Charlie Hustle" was the face of the Reds. During his five years with the Philadelphia Phillies and the partial year with the Expos, he began getting closer and closer to making people think it might be possible for him to break one of baseball's "unbreakable" records: Ty Cobb's 4,191 career basehits.
"Can Pete do it?" was the big question. He was in his forties and clearly his best years were behind him. A switch-hitter, when he became manager, he mainly played against right-handers.
In the summer of 1985, with Pete getting closer to 4192, I began working part time as a telemarketer. Yup. I was one of those people who call you at the most inopportune times to sell you a product or a service. Yes, I annoyed a lot of people, but I needed the money. My creditors trumped your inconveniences.
Julianne was a co-worker. She wasn't the most beautiful or the most graceful woman I'd ever seen, but her confessed love of all things sexual more than made up for it. She was about five years older than I was, about 5'6" with long medium brown hair and blue eyes. I'm guessing she had 36 C breasts, but they were really firm, and she had a gorgeous ass. Julianne had a great personality and an engaging smile and a great sense of humor. She could've stood to lose about ten pounds, but a BBW she wasn't. She was somewhat of a baseball fan, but I was a total fanatic. I'd played a year of pro minor league ball in the Seattle organization, but unfortunately, I'd suffered a couple of injuries during my high school career and never really recovered. After a really bad season trying to play with back issues, I was convinced I no longer had it and retired. Plus I missed home.
Julianne learned I had played professionally and asked me a lot of baseball questions in an attempt to learn more about the game, and I'd try to explain it to her. We had a good professional relationship.
The day before Pete hit the record breaker, Julianne surprised me by asking me out for a date the following evening. The restaurant we went to had a television. We saw Pete's glorious moment: a 2-1 opposite field hit off of San Diego right-hander Eric Show, who became the answer to a trivia question and has since died. We cheered wildly along with the other patrons as the hometown hero celebrated one of baseball's greatest moments.
After dinner, we went back to Julianne's small apartment. We watched television. She didn't resist my initial tentative moves and I got a little bolder.
