Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hits leader, died of heart disease on Sept. 30, his agent Ryan Fiterman confirmed to TMZ. He was 83.
Nicknamed “Charlie Hustle” for his hard-nosed style of play, Rose was selected for 17 All-Star games, received the 1973 National League MVP award and won three World Series titles – two back-to-back with the Cincinnati Reds in 1975 and 1976 and another with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980.
Rose spent the majority of his career with his hometown Reds, where he was a key part of Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” dynasty that dominated baseball in the mid-seventies. He led off a lineup packed with Hall of Fame players including Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan and became a fan favorite for his gritty style of play.
After the Reds faded from contention, Rose signed a then-record $3.2 million contract with the Phillies in 1979. Rose proved to be the missing piece for a Phillies team that had captured three straight division titles from 1976-78 but also wilted in the playoffs each time. With Rose aboard, the Phillies finally got over the hump in 1980, defeating the Kansas City Royals to capture the franchise’s first-ever World Series title.
After leaving the Phillies following the team’s loss in the 1983 World Series, Rose spent a season with the Montreal Expos before returning to the Reds as player-manager. On Sept. 8, 1985 during a game against the San Diego Padres at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium, Rose passed his childhood hero, the great Ty Cobb, as baseball’s all-time hits leader. The crowd cheered as Rose spoke to President Ronald Reagan postgame.
“Your reputation and legacy are secure,” the president said to Rose before the roaring crowd of 47,000. “It will be a long time before anyone is standing in the spot you’re in now.”
On March 20, 1989, MLB commissioner Peter Ueberroth announced that his office was conducting an inquiry into “serious allegations” about Rose, who was by then retired from the field and acting as the Reds’ manager.
The truth soon came out: Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time hit king and one of the best players to ever set foot on the diamond, was betting on baseball. Like the 1919 “Black Sox” who threw the World Series, Rose was put on the permanently ineligible list, banished from the game for life and barred from the Hall of Fame.
Rose’s fall was steep, the depth of his disgrace as dizzying as the peak of his stardom. He served five months in prison for tax charges in 1990 and eventually admitted to gambling on the game in the 2000s.
He spent the rest of his life campaigning for reinstatement, becoming a fixture at card shows and meet-and-greets on the Vegas strip. Rose’s many flaws were plain and he was open about them, confronting his critics head-on in a 2019 memoir and on any platform that would have him.
In his final years, he achieved a measure of rehabilitation, being inducted into the Cincinnati Reds’ team Hall of Fame in 2016. Major League Baseball, its official sponsors including FanDuel and MGM while possessing an authorized gaming operator in DraftKings Sportsbook, declined to reinstate him.
In 2022, Pete Rose publicly returned to Philadelphia in an expressly baseball capacity for the first time since his banishment from the sport. With special permission from MLB, he was in attendance for the Phillies’ COVID-delayed 40th anniversary celebration for the 1980 World Series-winning team. In a way, it was a microcosm of Rose’s life and career.
Off the field, he sparred with a reporter who questioned him about allegations of an inappropriate relationship with an underage girl in the 1970s, an accusation that had kept him off the Phillies Wall of Fame in 2017. He then repeatedly used profanity on the air with Phillies broadcasters Tom McCarthy and John Kruk, creating a palpable air of tension.
When Rose finally did take the field, hobbling out of the Phillies dugout wearing his old jersey to join his surviving teammates – now all in their 70s and 80s – gathered on the first base line at Citizens Bank Park, the sellout crowd’s thunderous cheers for Charlie Hustle drowned out the few scattered boos.