Pete Rose, 1941-2024

New York Times, “Pete Rose, Baseball Star Who Earned Glory and Shame, Dies at 83“

Pete Rose, one of baseball’s greatest players and most confounding characters, who earned glory as the game’s hit king and shame as a gambler and dissembler, died on Monday. He was 83.

His death was confirmed by the Cincinnati Reds, the team with which he spent most of his career. No cause was given.

For millions of baseball fans, Rose will be known mainly for a number, 4,256, his total of hits, the most for any player in the history of the game. But he was a deeply compromised champion.

Few sports figures have been the lightning rod for controversy and public opinion that he turned out to be, an athlete who maximized his gifts, earned a legion of fans with his competitive zeal and achieved wide celebrity and acclaim — only to fall from grace with astonishing indignity.

Had Shakespeare written about baseball, he might well have seized on the case of Rose, whose ascent to the rarefied heights of sport was accompanied by the undisguised hubris that undermined him.

A lifelong adrenaline junkie who often operated out of sheer gall, Rose was long known to baseball officials as a fevered horse player with a network of unsavory associates and a rumored out-of-control gambling habit. During his nonpareil career as a player, mostly with the Cincinnati Reds, his hometown team, he was warned repeatedly by major league officials to curtail his gambling, and in the late 1980s, Rose, then the Reds manager, was investigated by baseball to determine if any of his activity was illegal.

The report by the investigator, John Dowd, revealed that Rose had bet regularly with bookmakers on a variety of sports, and though Rose vehemently denied it, baseball included. In August 1989, he was banned from the game by the commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti, and he was subsequently declared ineligible for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame, which would otherwise have been a certainty.

One of the tawdrier episodes in baseball history and one of the most public — Rose’s farewell news conference was televised nationally — it was also, for Rose, monumentally costly. Not only did he lose his livelihood; he subsequently spent several months in jail for evasion of taxes related to his gambling income as well as his baseball memorabilia sales and autograph appearances. (For Giamatti, a former president of Yale who had served as baseball commissioner for only five months, the aftermath was far worse. A heavy smoker, he died at 51 a week after announcing his decision, the stress of the Rose case possibly contributing to the heart attack that killed him.)

Hoping for eventual reinstatement, the possibility of managing again and restoring his candidacy for the Hall, Rose perpetuated his lie for 13 years, steadfastly claiming, against a preponderance of evidence, that though he gambled on other sports, he never bet on his own. It was not until 2002 that he admitted to the baseball commissioner at the time, Bud Selig, that he had.

The confession was made public two years later in an autobiography, “Pete Rose: My Prison Without Bars,” written with Rick Hill. In the book he acknowledged that he had told Selig that he had bet regularly on baseball, including on games played by the Reds while he was their manager, though never against them, he claimed, asserting at one point that he “would rather die than lose a baseball game.”

The possibility of his reinstatement never seemed to vanish entirely. But neither Selig nor the subsequent commissioner, Rob Manfred, lifted the ban, and Rose lived the remainder of his days under a cloud. Even so, among other honors, he was named to Major League Baseball’s official all-century team in 1999, and he refused to leave the scene quietly. Voluble and vulgar, self-indulgent and self-justifying, Rose never gave up gambling at the track. He was perceived by many, after the publication of his book, not so much as a contrite penitent as a crass opportunist.

“This is a man who admitted something in a forum in which he can make money,” the sportswriter Peter Gammons wrote. “He has no remorse, no respect for anything but his next bet.”

In 2017, Rose’s reputation was further tarnished when an allegation that he had once had sex with a minor came to light in a defamation lawsuit that he filed against Dowd, who had led the investigation into Rose’s gambling. The lawsuit stemmed from remarks Dowd had made on a radio program saying that Rose had had sex with “12- to 14-year-old girls.”

In testimony from that case, an unidentified woman said she had sex with Rose when she was under 16. Rose responded that he had believed that she was 16, the age of consent in Ohio. He never faced any charges related to underage sex, the statute of limitation having expired.

Despite the black marks against him, Rose remained an enormously popular figure among fans, regularly drawing large crowds for memorabilia shows and signings, including in Cooperstown, N.Y., the home of the Hall of Fame, during its annual induction weekends.

Wall Street Journal, “Pete Rose, Baseball’s All-Time Hit Leader and Ultimate Pariah, Dies at 83“

Later in his life, long after the lights had dimmed on the baseball career that made him famous, Pete Rose would spend his days sitting behind a table, steps away from a Las Vegas casino. Pen in hand, the man with the most hits in major-league history would sell autographs to anybody willing to pay for the privilege of his signature and his time.

The customers would come to the Strip with their money and their memories to reminisce with their hero about the good times, when Rose represented everything right with the game he loved—and betrayed. They would find a complicated figure who believed to the end in his own greatness, whether in the batter’s box or in the world of sports memorabilia.

“I don’t mean to sound arrogant about this,” Rose told The Wall Street Journal in 2013, “but what I do, I think I’m the best at it.”

Rose died at the age of 83 on Monday, a Cincinnati Reds spokesman confirmed, leaving behind one of the most polarizing legacies in the history of American sports. On the field, few accomplished more—three World Series championships, three batting titles, 17 All-Star appearances, not to mention the record 4,256 hits. He put up those remarkable numbers by sheer force of will, overcoming clear physical limitations thanks to an unrelenting desire to succeed, boundless enthusiasm and a ferocious competitive spirit.

But for more than three decades, Rose served as the ultimate pariah, excommunicated from MLB because he committed the most cardinal of sins: betting on his own team. His permanent ban from baseball, levied in 1989 by Commissioner Bart Giamatti and upheld multiple times since, kept Rose out of the Hall of Fame, a controversial omission to this day.

In a two-sentence statement posted to social media acknowledging Rose’s death, MLB extended condolences to those who “admired his greatness, grit and determination on the field of play.” Reds owner Bob Castellini said, “We must never forget what he accomplished.”

With sports betting now legal in most of the country, baseball’s relationship with gambling has softened dramatically since Rose’s exile. Advertisements for sportsbooks now adorn stadiums around the country. Television broadcasts proudly display live wagering odds.

The language of Rule 21, however, remains unchanged and hangs on the wall of every clubhouse as a reminder of its significance and severity: Anybody “who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible.”

Rose endures as perhaps its most notorious violator.

Cincinnati Enquirer, “Pete Rose, MLB all-time hits leader, dies at 83“

Pete Rose, the Cincinnati native who became baseball’s all-time hits leader as well as one of the most divisive figures in the sport’s history, died Monday, according to a TMZ report, which his agent Ryan Fiterman confirmed. He was 83.

After reaching the pinnacle of the sport he loved, Rose was banned from baseball in 1989 for gambling while manager of his hometown Reds.

That came just four years after Rose had broken Ty Cobb’s hit record, a mark that still stands.

He is MLB’s all-time hits leader with 4,256.

The lifetime ban from the game kept the Sedamsville native out of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, even though he still holds numerous career and single-season records.

In addition to the hit title, Rose also played in more games, had more at-bats, had gotten on base more and had singled more than anyone in baseball history. He also made the most outs in MLB history.

The contrast with Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 today, couldn’t be more stark. Rose was among the greatest to ever do what made him famous but a rather despicable human being. Carter was arguably a failed President but one of the best human beings. Rose will be forever remembered as the Hit King. Carter will be forever remembered as the greatest ex-President.