Back to the beginning
Spending the first part of his childhood in Clarksburg, W.Va., with his mom and younger brother, Brown became a fan of the Reds listening to Waite Hoyt, one of the first players-turned-broadcaster and the radio voice of the Reds from 1942-1965.
When he was 11, Brown, his brother, and his mom, Charlene Brown, moved to Cincinnati to be closer to family. Charlene, an RN, became head nurse at the U.S. Public Health Clinic in downtown Cincinnati.
Four years later, as fate would have it, Pete Rose was joining a USO show with Joe DiMaggio and had to go to the Public Health Clinic for shots every day for two weeks before he could travel with the show to Vietnam.
During the course of the two weeks, Charlene, a great baseball fan herself, became comfortable talking with Pete and eventually asked if there was anything her son could do at the ballpark. She was thinking selling peanuts or popcorn as a way to get him into Crosley Field for the games.
“After my mom made that request, Pete said, ‘Well, I’ll call you when I get back from Vietnam.’”
Despite her colleagues’ cynicism that he’d ever call, Pete did and told her to talk with Bernie Stowe, the Reds’ longtime equipment manager.
At the end of a two-hour interview with Stowe in the clubhouse, Brown got the job.
“Bernie said the job offer is long hours, hard work, and virtually no pay,” Brown says. “And for the next three years, I had the best job in the world.”