Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time leader in hits but a three-time world champion and 17-time All-Star who remains out of the sport’s Hall of Fame after it was found he had gambled on baseball while managing the Cincinnati Reds in the late 1980s, died Monday at his home in Las Vegas.
He was 83.
Rose, who retired as a player in 1986, managed the Reds from 1984-89, when he was banned by Major League Baseball for betting on games.
Although he agreed to the ban, Rose adamantly denied his gambling involvement for nearly 15 years — despite mountains of proof to the contrary — before admitting to gambling in his 2004 autobiography.
Rose said he bet on the Reds but never against them.
“I would rather die than lose a baseball game,’’ Rose wrote. “I hate to lose. There is no temptation on earth that could get me to fix a game.”
Bart Giamatti, MLB’s commissioner at the time, placed Rose on baseball’s permanently ineligible list — Giamatti died eight days later of a massive heart attack — where Rose remained until his death despite repeatedly appealing his case to Giamatti’s successors over the years.
Rose’s name has never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot — although he has received some write-in votes — nor has he been eligible even to be considered for enshrinement by any of the Hall’s veterans committees.
Before his banishment, Rose had compiled a résumé that would have ushered him into Cooperstown on the first ballot accompanied by a brass band.
In 24 seasons with the Reds, Phillies and Expos, the switch hitter collected 4,256 hits — 67 more than Ty Cobb (4,189), who had held the record since 1928, before Rose passed him in 1986.
Rose is also baseball’s all-time leader in singles, games played, at-bats and plate appearances.
An integral part of Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine that won the World Series in 1975 and 1976, Rose also won a world championship with the Phillies in 1980.
He won three batting titles while compiling a lifetime batting average of .303, winning an MVP award and two Gold Gloves.
He was named to the NL All-Star team at a record five different positions (second base, third base, first base, right field and left field).
But it was gambling on baseball games and his glaring absence from the Hall for which he was best known, although a case could be made he’s best known in New York and its environs for his famous scrap with Mets shortstop Bud Harrelson after a hard slide into second base by Rose during a 1973 NL playoff game at Shea Stadium.
It ignited a benches-clearing brawl and caused the game to be delayed as Mets fans pelted Rose with whatever they could find when he went out to play left field in the bottom half of that inning.
“Pete Rose gave too much to baseball to die in left field at Shea Stadium,” Reds manager Sparky Anderson said after pulling his team off the field for several minutes before play eventually was resumed.
Peter Edward Rose was born April 14, 1941, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to LaVerne and the demanding Harry Rose.
A two-sport star (baseball, football) at Western Hills High School, Rose’s baseball career may have ended in high school if not for an uncle — a low-level scout for the team — who convinced the prospect-poor Reds to sign him.
He began his professional career in the New York-Penn League with the Geneva Redlegs in 1960.
Three years later, Rose was named the NL Rookie of the Year.
He received his nickname “Charlie Hustle” from Whitey Ford after the Yankees pitcher took note of the way Rose sprinted to first base after drawing a walk in an exhibition game.
After a down year in 1964, Rose led the NL in hits in 1965, the first of 10 seasons with at least 200 hits and his .312 batting average was the first of nine consecutive seasons in which he had an average of .300 or better.
He won back-to-back batting titles in 1968 and ’69, the second with a career-high mark of .348.
In 1970, he led the league in hits, but might be best remembered for the violent home-plate collision he had with Cleveland catcher Ray Fosse at the All-Star Game in Cincinnati.
Trying to score from second on a 12th-inning single by Jim Hickman, Rose barreled into Fosse, who didn’t have the ball, while scoring the winning run.
Fosse, 29 at the time, suffered a separated shoulder that wasn’t diagnosed until the offseason and was never the same player.
Ironically, Rose and Fosse had dinner together the night before the game along with Fosse’s Cleveland teammate Sam McDowell.
“I never got hit like that before,” said Fosse, who died in 2021 and said Rose never apologized for bowling him over. “I know he didn’t mean it, but who knows, maybe he should have run around me.”
“I’ve got to do everything I can to score there. My dad’s at the game,” Rose said in 2017. “The reality is I missed the next three games. He didn’t miss any. And he went on to play nine more years. But I ruined his career? I wasn’t trying to hurt him. If I wouldn’t have knocked Ray Fosse on his ass, you would not have known who he was.”
That was Rose, unapologetic until the end.
In his book, “My Prison Without Bars,” Rose wrote he told MLB commissioner Bud Selig, “Yes sir, I did bet on baseball.’’
When Selig asked Rose how often, Rose said: “Four or five times a week. But I never bet against my own team, and I never made any bets from the clubhouse.’’
When Selig asked Rose why he broke one of baseball’s most sacred rules, Rose said, “I didn’t think I’d get caught.’’
In the book Rose questioned why his gambling problem was treated so severely, arguing that if he “had been an alcoholic or a drug addict, baseball would have suspended me for six weeks and paid for my rehabilitation.’’
Over time, and with Major League Baseball and other leagues partnering with legalized gaming companies, some have come to see Rose’s side of things — to a point.
Many stadiums and arenas now have sportsbooks on site, including Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.
“It has gone too far and it’s hypocritical,” Hall of Famer Rod Carew said in a tweet. “How can you keep Pete Rose out and have a sportsbook at the Reds stadium??”
“If they can embrace gambling to the level of putting it in the stadium they can forgive Pete and recognize him for the Great he is. That’s the point,” Carew added in a separate tweet.
Rose was a constant presence in Cooperstown during Hall of Fame weekends, holding court in one of the many memorabilia shops along Main Street where he would sign anything and everything — for a fee.
But he always left before the induction ceremony.
“I’m not here to steal anyone’s thunder,” he said,
After winning consecutive world championships with a Reds team that included future Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez, Rose put together a 44-game hitting streak during the 1978 season, tying the NL single-season record set by Wee Willie Keeler in 1897.
Rose became a free agent following the 1979 season and signed a four-year $3.2 million contract with the Phillies making him, for a time, the highest paid athlete in professional sports.
With future Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt a fixture at third base, Rose moved across the diamond to first base and helped Philadelphia to two World Series appearances in four years, winning the title in 1980.
After a subpar season in 1983, the Phillies released him and Rose signed a one-year deal with Montreal. It was with the Expos that Rose doubled off former Phillies teammate Jerry Koosman for the 4,000th hit of his career.
Later that season, Rose was traded back to the Reds and was immediately named player-manager.
He would break Cobb’s record while with the Reds, dropping a single into left-center field in a game against the Padres on Sept. 11, 1985, for his 4,192nd hit.
Rose finished his career with 4,256 hits.
It was while managing the Reds in 1988 that Rose was suspended for 30 days and fined by Giamatti for physical contact with umpire Dave Pallone. Rose claimed Pallone made contact with him first.
Rose also faced problems off the field, spending time in prison in 1990 for filing false income tax returns and, in 2017, he was accused of a sexual relationship with a minor that dated back to the 1970s.
That accusation cost him a job as an analyst with Fox Sports.
Rose, who was married twice, is survived by his partner Kiana Kim, his five children and two stepchildren.
In his 1989 report, special investigator John Dowd concluded that Rose, as a player-manager and as a manager, made 412 wagers on baseball from April 8, 1985, to July 5, 1987, including 52 on the Reds to win.
Rose, who also wrote a book in 1989 claiming that he had not bet on baseball, wrote in his later book that he never allowed his wagers “to influence my baseball decisions.’’
“I’m sure that I’m supposed to act all sorry or sad or guilty now that I’ve accepted that I’ve done something wrong,’’ he wrote in the book’s epilogue. “But you see, I’m just not built that way.
“So let’s leave it like this. … I’m sorry it happened, and I’m sorry for all the people, fans and family that it hurt. Let’s move on.’’
But by early 2023, Rose had taken a more conciliatory approach.
“I’m the one that screwed up and if [MLB] ever decides to give me a second chance, I’d be with open arms understanding,” Rose told Forbes. “Baseball has made up their mind on me. I could tell them I’m going to die tomorrow and they wouldn’t change their mind.
“I’ve been suspended over 30 years. That’s a long time to be suspended for betting on your own team to win. And I was wrong. But that mistake was made. Time usually heals everything. It seems like it does in baseball, except when you talk about the Pete Rose case.”