7/18/24: Mo Egger with Mark Monroe, Director of "Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose."

Mark Monroe is the director of Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose.

From HBO Sports and 42 West: 

Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose is a four-part documentary series chronicling the life and career of Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time hits leader, who received a lifetime ban from the game after a Major League Baseball investigation revealed he bet on the Cincinnati Reds to win games during his time as manager of the team. Charlie Hustle & the Matter of Pete Rose provides intimate access to the polarizing former player as he embarks on a new bid for reinstatement in the MLB and a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Part 1 & Part 2 will debut on HBO on July 24th at 9PM and 10PM, the final 2 parts will debut on July 25th and all 4 parts will be available to stream on MAX on July 24th at 9PM.

Watch the trailer: youtube.com/watch?v=YvHUIgeImL0

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This looks outstanding. You'll watch iton HBO next Wednesday at nine o'clock July
the twenty fourth. It is thebeginning of a four part docu series called
Charlie Hussele and The Matter of PeteRose. It chronicles the life and career
of Pete Rose. It is directedby Mark Monroe, who's going to join
us in just a second. Ifyou have not seen the trailer, I've

(00:21):
thrown it up on social media.It looks terrific and they get a lot
of people across a lot of differentbackgrounds to contribute provide context, obviously and
most importantly including Pete himself. Thispremiere is on July the twenty fourth,
which is next Wednesday at nine o'clock. Part one, Part two is going
to be immediately after, and thenthe next two parts, Parts three and

(00:44):
four, the following night. Allfour parts available on Max starting on July
twenty fourth, next Wednesday at ninepm. The film is directed by Mark
Monroe, whose film credits just thisyear, He's got Jim Henson, Idea
and the Blue Angels and the BeachBoys. That's just this year, and
now Charlie Hustle and the Matter ofPete Rose. This has been a project

(01:08):
in the making now for a while. Mark, I appreciate the time.
Look, I don't think there's beena sports figure in the last fifty or
sixty years, maybe with the exceptionof O. J. Simpson that has
been talked about, discussed, debated, written about, argued about more than
Pete Rose. And so, onone hand, it's not necessarily a new
subject. On the other, fora lot of folks, it never fails

(01:30):
to illicit emotions and really strong opinions. So what made you decide to do
a project based on Pete Rose?Well, I would love to take credit
for choosing Pete, but my phonerang someone I made a film with before,
and Pete was the subject. Heknows how I like baseball, and

(01:51):
he was like Pete Rose, andI said yes. The film came about
because a great character actor, funnyguy, Greg Grunberg. You may know
him from Lost or Heroes like he'sbeen on Star Wars movies. He's fantastic.
He's a huge baseball fan, hissons played college baseball. He had
a connection to Pete. Felt likethis was something that he could get Pete

(02:14):
to agree to. He did doggedlykind of pursued it. Greg's best friend
from childhood is jj Abrams Bad Robot. I had worked with a couple of
producers, Glenn Zipper and Sean Stewarton some Bad Robot projects and so when
it came up, they called me, and I'm thankful they called me.
Now it led to a zoom withPete because I had to kind of say,

(02:37):
like, look, the only wayI I would do it is if
we can ask we can talk abouteverything. Nothing's off the table. I
should be able to ask you anyquestion. And that was one of the
funniest, craziest zooms I think I'veever been on a life but as a
time of COVID. He was charming. He was Pete and he said,
listen, man, you can askme anything you want. You can start

(02:58):
right now if you want. Sothat's how it all started. So,
I mean, he's he's such aninteresting figure from that perspective. And I've
had this. I've had the pleasureof interviewing Pete five or six times,
and there are never any conditions,there are never any qualifications, and I
find myself learning stuff about Pete Rose. This has been a figure in my

(03:19):
life, you know, really sinceI was an infant growing up here,
right, So there's and yet Istill learn something about Pete every time I
talk with him, every time Italk with someone who knows him very very
well. So give me an ideaof some things about him that you learn
from talking with him or talking withall the other people that you have talked
to in doing this project that maybestood out or maybe you didn't know going

(03:42):
in. Well, I mean,Pete is such a large figure even in
my life. I'm not from Cincinnati, but you know, if you I'm
of an age where when I wasa kid, you know, Pete Rose
was the name when it came tobaseball. My brother was a massive We
grew up in Oklahoma that we hadno professional sports teams, and so you

(04:03):
got to pick and choose, right, Yeah, you know, everyone knew
who Pete Rose was like he andso you know, I think coming to
it at this chapter of his life, right, he's you know, I
started with him when he's eighty one. That's when I did my first interview
with him. It's not like Ididn't know a lot about the baseball.

(04:24):
I think talking to other people whohave been close to him in their lives,
I learned more maybe about about thebaseball, about Pete. I loved
it when Al Michaels told me thathe was a huge baseball fan and he
would he would seek out and havedinner with Pete almost every night because he
felt like he learned more about thegame at dinner with Pete than he'd ever

(04:46):
known about the game playing it asa kid and calling it as an announcer,
and that kind of stuff. Itstays with you. I'm glad this
is a long, comprehensive dog,because I think the baseball part is important.
And I'm forty six, so youknow, even growing up here,
I remember forty one ninety two,I remember his last couple of years.

(05:09):
I remember him as a manager,and then for most of my life he's
been this exiled character. So howimportant was it to devote a huge swath
of time in this project to thebaseball part and to the part of Pete's
life where he was one of theseminal figures in all of American sports for
a very long time. I thinkit was. It was I fought for

(05:30):
it. It was hugely important becauseunfortunately, you know, the scandal sucks
up the air, sucks upth tooxygen, and it happened at the end
of his career, right, Sowe're left with that, right, And
I wanted to make sure that theglory of Pete Right, the amazing way
that he played the game, thesmall things he did inside the game right

(05:55):
to win, were brought out right, because I think that's that's an aspect
of his person that tells you abouthim, that makes you understand why he
may be so aggressive when confronted laterin life about things he doesn't want to
talk about. It's because you know, he's Pete Rose, right. He
plays the game a certain way,he talks to you a certain way,

(06:16):
right, And I think knowing thatis important making sure that the glory was
justified. It was way more thanjustified. You know, he's revered today
by players today in terms of whathe did on the field. The part
of Pete Rose interviews that I'm alwaysstruck by, and there are some that

(06:38):
I've conducted and some that I've watchedor listened to where he comes off as
someone who is very much at peacewith his place in the game's history,
with his current relationship with baseball,with his exiled status. And then there
are times where I get the exactopposite impression. What's your impression and what's
the impression we're going to walk awayfrom. Well, it certainly is as

(07:01):
you put it. It's on theday. It's the way that he is
on the day you talk to him. And on the baseball side of it,
Look, you know, no oneknows the stats, the records more
than Pete. He can tell you. He can tell you, you know,
the change up from nineteen seventy threethat he you know, swatted to
left field like. He has amemory for numbers and for action in the

(07:27):
game that is unrivaled. It's funto talk baseball with him, but you're
right, there are moments when askinghim about his relationship with baseball now and
his prospects for changing the outcome interms of his potential to be inducted in
the Hall, in which he youknow, it's uncomfortable for him. He

(07:49):
doesn't have a lot of hope now. Over the course of my relationship,
because I did get to spend alot of time with him, I did
feel, like, you know,there were subtle movements in his attitude,
and I tried to bring those outin the film without you know, creating
a spoiler alert. You know,do I think he's gonna get in the

(08:11):
Hall of Fame. I think that'swhy I made the film, to put
it out there for a public theremay not be as attuned to this story
as someone from Cincinnati. How muchof this is driven by and even since
you started this project. You know, when you started this project, sports
gambling was not legal in Ohio.Now it is. It's also now legal
in Kentucky. It's legal in somany more places. A lot has been

(08:35):
made over the above board relationships thatMajor League Baseball has with casinos, online,
bookmakers, and so in this era, I think for a lot of
folks it has reignited the conversation aboutbaseball stance on Pete Rose. How much
of this project at all, ifany, was kind of motivated by by

(08:56):
a different dynamic than existed maybe evenjust five or six years ago. I
wouldn't say it's motivated by it,but it certainly excited me as a storyteller.
And I think there's two aspects tothat. And one, yes,
the world has changed dramatically from whenhe, you know, broke the cardinal
rule. Baseball, like all professionalleagues, have embraced gambling, and they

(09:18):
in their own ways encourage it.You can look at the you know,
watch baseball on MLB dot com andit will give you the best bets of
the day. Like this is notunusual. And I think that the other
thing that's changed, I think somewhatdramatically is our relationship with the truth because
of social media, because of theamount of ways we can get information.

(09:41):
You know, we live in aworld where not everyone agrees on what's true
and what's not true, as opposedto nineteen seventy three or nineteen eighty nine,
you know, there was a unifiedunderstanding mostly about what was true and
what was not. So I thinkhe looked at the gilling though, and
said to himself, this is anopening for me, Like, look at

(10:05):
that. The world is embracing gambling. Now I should be getting another look,
right, And I think, actuallyit's going to have the opposite effect.
At the end of the day,I think the Major League Baseball and
the other sports leagues have to bemore more dogged and determined than ever to
be strict about integrity of the game. There's way more opportunity for a young

(10:28):
player making millions of dollars to beton their expertise right in today's world,
and I think you're going to seemore of it. They just kicked the
guy out for life two months ago. I think I think that's the problem
major League Baseball faces today. Andso to reverse course on Pete Rose,
now you might be signaling, hey, it's okay, it's not that bad,

(10:52):
right, So I think I thinkwhat maybe Pete thought would happen the
reverse is actually true. Yeah,that's that's well put. This is going
to be an awesome project. Andthe amount of HBO and Max subscriptions that
you're gonna be able to count orthe company is going to be able to

(11:13):
count from Cincinnati, is going togo through the roof in the next week.
This should be really really interesting andfun for a lot of us to
watch. Thank you so much,Mark, Absolutely, I enjoyed my time
in Cincinnati. I can't wait toget back