Rose is like watching two trains that are inevitably going to collide at maximum speed. You know it’s going to be ugly but you can’t keep your eyes off of them.
My interest in the subject came out of a story I wrote for
Vanity Fair about the relationship between Pete Rose and
someone almost twenty years his junior named Tommy
Gioiosa. The two met in the 1970s when by coincidence they
happened to be staying at the same motel in Tampa for
spring training. Rose of course was a member of the World
Champion Cincinnati Reds and arguably the most exciting
player in baseball. Gioiosa was a member of a no-name
junior college team from Massachusetts. He babysat Rose’s
son, Pete Jr. That led to Tommy getting invited to spend
Christmas with the Roses. And he never left. When Pete
separated from his wife, Tommy went with him. He basically
became Rose’s adopted son. He lived with Rose for roughly
five years and saw everything in Pete—his greatness, his
demons, his rise and fall, not to mention his own trajectory into ruin.
Bissiner has been a writer for 30 years but in his words "has never encountered anything like the relationship between Pete and Tommy."
Buzz describes it as the American Dream gone fractured and crazy and nightmarish.
This is NOT a script about Pete Rose. This is NOT a
traditional sports script. It is NOT remotely a biopic. It is a script about a complex and wild and ultimately tragic relationship between two charismatic and deeply flawed individuals. I have been a writer for over 30 years but I
have never encountered anything like the relationship
between Pete and Tommy—what I describe as the American
Dream gone fractured and crazy and nightmarish.
Gioiosa grew up in New Bedford, Mass. He had nothing.
His only outlet was baseball and he was good enough to be
a high school All American. He modeled himself on Pete Rose. He played like Pete Rose. He looked like Pete Rose. Pete Rose was his idol. Purely by chance he meets him, then moves in with him. At first Tommy thought he had died
and gone to heaven because what could be more spectacular
than living with your idol? It was the epitome of the
American dream for Tommy, from the dreary rags of New
Bedford to living with one of the greatest baseball players
ever. But bit by bit the dream unravels and by the end it is coming apart with warp speed.
Watching the two of them is like watching two trains that
are inevitably going to collide at maximum speed. You
know it’s going to be ugly but you can’t keep your eyes off
of them. Both end up getting hooked on addictions—Rose
on gambling and Gioiosa on steroids. Both end up going to
prison. Both end up ruined. There is also a terrible act of
betrayal. It is a quintessential American story that goes to the heart of what fame and fortune and success truly mean, and that’s what irresistibly drew me to write the script.
Buzz Bissinger’s Rose screenplay has been written and is
completed. Red Bird Cinema has optioned the screenplay
through 2011.