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Charlie Hustle, Aged 83
The man with more hits in Major League Baseball than any other player in the history of the game is dead at age 83.
He was the guy you hated the most when he played against you and the man you loved the most when he wore your team’s uniform. And when he wore your team’s uniform, it was guaranteed to be covered in dirt by the bottom of the 9th inning.
Pete Rose was certainly no saint. His marriages ended in divorce (wife number one and wife number two infamously fought in the stands at old Riverfront Stadium) and his reputation lay in tatters after the betting scandal that derailed both his managerial career and his enshrinement in Cooperstown.
They barred him from the Hall of Fame but they could not take away the 17 All-Star nods, the MVPs (NL 1973, World Series 1975), the three championships or the 4,256 career hits.
Published in GeneralThe Reds are heartbroken to learn of the passing of baseball legend Pete Rose. pic.twitter.com/zOlU9NreWR
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) September 30, 2024
I have two memories of Pete Rose.
1. Seeing him play at Crosley Field. My Dad had taken me on a business trip and on the way home to Cleveland he took me to a game there to see Pete Rose play.
2. When he obliterated our catcher, Ray Fosse, in the All Star game.
He was a ball player.
He played the game so different. He choked way up on the bat, bent over at the plate, didn’t mind being hit by a pitch, and ran to first base (before Pete, batters walked to first base when issued a base on balls.) He was an all star at multiple positions, but he played all over the field.
In the ’24 season, Bobby Witt was the only player in Major League Baseball to get more than 200 hits. Pete’s career was roughly 22 years of that kind of production.
Sad that he didn’t get to enjoy his enshrinement in Cooperstown.
I never got to see him play, what with his being in the wrong league and all. I did get to see his kid play in a couple of Midwest League minor league games.
It seems too soon for him to be gone.
A hitting clinic:
Rose was originally wanted to play Roger Murdoch in Airplane!, but filming was during baseball season, so Kareem was hired instead.
What a different world it would be if Rose was available.
Pete said that during his first year all the veterans called him a hot dog. The only players who spoke to him and the only ones he hung with were Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson and the rest of the black players.
Pete was a hot dog, no doubt. Hard to think of anyone in any sport who backed it up like Rose.
My Mom would always throw in a comment about his haircut.
He was my grandpa’s favorite player. I grew up with George Brett and the Royals, but grandpa would talk about Pete Rose.
Since it was a lifetime ban from the Hall of Fame and that sentence has now been served, will they induct Rose now?
Probably not. Shoeless Joe Jackson, despite evidence that he was most likely not guilty of throwing games, is forever banned. After the Rose incident they took the step of formally adopting a rule that prevented just that. They reiterated this as recently as 2017:
Sorry, keeping Pete out of Cooperstown is crazy. He was so good that he changed the game.
Want to have a Nice Guy HOF, have at it. But Pete is as deserving for his playing career as any current member. He out hit them all.
I haven’t watch baseball since 1994, except for some local minor league games, but evidently gambling sites are huge sponsors now. People on Twitter last night were commenting about the mixed message MLB gives, “Baseball legend Pete Rose has died. He’s not in the Hall of Fame because of gambling. Now a word from our sponsor Bet MGM.”
When the Reds traded for Joe Morgan, people thought they were nuts. Sparky played a hunch and gave Joe the locker next to Pete Rose. In short order, Joe became the player we remember, and a lifelong bond formed.
I remember 4,192. I also remember the fairly lackluster Reds team Pete managed, not great years for us. Not sure Pete understood not everyone could do what his drive and talent allowed him to do. Dad has a ball signed by the Reds’ 1963 roster, Pete’s rookie year. Tony Perez was on that team as well.
Morgan, Perez, Rose, Bench, Foster, Concepcion, those guys were the posters in my room, the commercials on TV, and Johnny helped start The Baseball Bunch (because, of all reasons, Watergate. True story.) They were our heroes, so, even with the scandals, I was rooting for him to simply have a good life. Not sure he found it, he loved the game; justifiably, he wasn’t allowed in it.
HoF? His name is there already. It will happen soon or not at all.
Got to see Pete Jr. play some years later in Triple-A for Indianapolis. Good hitter, smooth, but lacking his father’s edge. A very solid Triple-A level professional who never caught on in the big leagues.
RIP Pete Rose.
I saw Pete Rose playing against the Mets at Shea Stadium in 1986 – his last season. I can’t remember what happened on the field, but some people beside me (okay, with me) got in a row with a couple of Reds fans, and beer was thrown.
Did the name “Bud Harrelson” come up?
I wrote about gambling and Rule 21 here.
The bottom line is that the only way professional sports works, and the only way legal gambling on those sports works, is to keep the game clean and on the up and up. To do that, you need to strictly police the people who can affect the outcomes, namely players, coaches and officials. Pete went to Spring Training every season where officials from the Commissioner’s Office explains Rule 21, and there are giant posters in every clubhouse. This did not sneak up on him.
Johnny Bench talked about trying to get Pete the help he needed this morning on the Dan Patrick Show:
I don’t recall, but the words “what a waste!” were uttered by the Irish guy (me).
This “No Player Gambling on Baseball” warning is sponsored by Draft Kings.
In the late 90’s I was at some work conference, maybe in Las Vegas. Those conferences all ran together. The hotel convention facility had all kinds of things going on. There were several tables and book signings in the convention hall. While walking to my next session I noticed that Pete Rose was setting up a table for book signings. Wow! I was amazed as there was nobody lined up at his table. Down the hall a ways was another guy signing books whose name I can’t remember but the line was almost a city block long. He was some chef. My only thought was how times had changed.
Sorry that Pete was not a better human being. He was a heckuva ball player. Ty Cobb also was known as a rather challenged human being.
If OJ Simpson is in the NFL Hall of Fame, Pete Rose deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame . . .
He deserves it but they shouldn’t let him in.
The “lifetime ban” is done, but it isn’t that simple. From the Cincinnati Enquirer:
There are only two possibilities: MLB rescinds the ban; or the Hall rescinds the rule. Of the two, I would say the latter is more unlikely. Several commentators pointed out the irony of MLB preaching about it while accepting significant sponsorship money from gambling sites.
Despite that, we’ve seen serious treatment of the gambling episode involving Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter. Reportedly, none of debts settled with Ohtani’s money were for bets on baseball, though they seemed to cover every other major sport in the world. The site used was an illegal offshore betting center. It’s unlikely we’ll learn anything more.
Ohtani is a star in a period of baseball where they seem less prevalent. He draws interest and boosts attendance. Rose was a star in an age of stars. Everyone knew a player or two on every team. Johnny Bench said integrity of the game is all we have, but after all the juicing of the 90’s to 00’s, do we really have that? There is no straightforward answer, it depends on who you ask. The same is true of the Pete Rose HoF enshrinement question.
Irony is fine. If they allowed Rose in the HoF the irony would be gone. Who would want that? The world needs irony.
The bottom line is any HOF member should be based by performance on the field of play . . .
Pete Rose was one of the players who you loved when he was on your team and hated when not. I was a big pirates fan in the 70s and hated Rose and the big red machine. He was a great player and competitor
They can change the rule for all players going forward, then.