Pete Rose transfixed Major League Baseball audiences for 24 years across three different organizations as he set all-time records for hits, at-bats and games played.
The Clark County Coroner in Nevada confirmed to Fox News on Monday that Rose had died at the age of 83. The cause of death was not immediately known. As word about his death trickled out to the world, tributes and remembrances poured in.
"Charlie Hustle," as he was called in his glory days with the Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds and Montreal Expos, was remembered as a polarizing figure in the baseball world who seemingly gave it his all whether he played in the afternoon, evening or in exhibition games.
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"Dogged, determined, relentless, competitor, vicious competitor with what he did to Ray Fosse during the All-Star Game in a game that maybe mattered back then," legendary sportscaster Jim Gray told Fox News Digital when asked to describe the competitor Rose was for the baseball fan who is more in tune with the stars of today. "I think he played and cared about the results. He cared about his personal results. He cared about his team results and he was aggressive. The fans loved him. They loved that he showed up for work every day and gave it his all. And to my knowledge, what we saw of on the field was his pursuit to win."
Gray recalled some of his first memories of Rose on the field when he was a broadcaster for Phillies pre-game shows. Rose played in Philadelphia from 1979 to the middle of the 1983 season, when he was traded to the Expos.
The greatness he brought on the field would eventually be overshadowed during his time as the Reds’ manager by a gambling scandal not seen in the sport since the 1919 Black Sox Scandal.
Rose was questioned in February 1989 about whether he had gambled on baseball and, at the time, only admitted to making bets on football, basketball and horse racing and vehemently denied betting on baseball. Some of the allegations were detailed in a Sports Illustrated story which sparked lawyer John M. Dowd to conduct an investigation and deliver it to then-Commissioner Bart Giamatti.
Dowd’s report was submitted to Giamatti in May 1989 and published in June 1989. The report alleged that Rose had bet on at least 52 Reds games in 1987.
Rose eventually agreed to voluntarily be placed on baseball’s ineligible list with the option that he could apply for reinstatement. Gray told Fox News Digital that Rose and Giamatti wanted to figure out how he could get back into the game, but Rose’s lawyer, Reuven Katz, did not want his client to admit to gambling on baseball and take the deal that was being offered – which included Rose seeking extensive help for addiction and rehabilitation.
According to Gray, Dowd told him that Katz said to Giamatti, "Peter’s a legend." To which Giamatti replied, "No, baseball’s the legend."
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Rose applied for reinstatement in 1992, 1998, 2003, 2015, 2020 and 2022. However, each commissioner, Fay Vincent, Bud Selig and Rob Manfred, either never acted on it or outright denied Rose’s requests. Being on the ineligible list kept Rose from being in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Rose’s support seemed to be split among legends in the game. Ted Williams said in 2000 he did not believe Rose should be in the Hall Fame.
"I feel sorry for Pete Rose, but he committed the cardinal sin of baseball. He gambled," he told The New York Times.
Mike Schmidt conceded in 2017 that Rose would not get into the Hall of Fame but wondered why the hitting machine never got the "same level of forgiveness" other guys have when it came to performance-enhancing drugs, according to the Philly Voice.
Years later, Rose admitted to betting on baseball in an autobiography despite repeated denials – including one in a famous 1999 interview with Gray at Turner Field when he was honored as part of the All-Century Team.
Additionally, as sports gambling became more prevalent across the United States, Manfred made clear that reinstating Rose would be "an unacceptable risk."
Gray, who wrote about Rose in his book, "Talking to GOATs: The Moments You Remember and the Stories You Never Heard," said he did not think it was strange that Rose was still ineligible even with baseball’s close ties to gambling.
"No, I don’t find that strange," Gray told Fox News Digital. "The rules were the rules and the rules were applied to him based on the conditions at the time that this was going on. He signed his own banishment from baseball with the opportunity to reapply and none of those applications were successful.
"So, he knew the conditions, and he agreed to those conditions. And just because the times have changed and things have changed doesn’t alter in any way the main fundamental issue. And that is any active manager, player, or anybody in an official capacity involved in baseball can ever gamble on the sport. No sport can ever accept that, and if caught doing so, then the punishment has to be severe."
Gray added that he still thought Rose deserved to be in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown but with an explanation about his wrongdoings.
"Having said all that and understanding that the Hall of Famer is coupled with being banned from baseball and no gambling. We don’t live in the Soviet Union. And you can’t erase a man’s records. And what he did on the field is worthy of the Hall of Fame because he had more hits than anybody, and he was prolific at that. And the plaque and the honor never, obviously, came during his life. If they were to do it posthumously, perhaps it should reflect that he was banned from baseball and the reason and the reason why on the plaque – for gambling. But he should be in the Hall of Fame. You just can’t say it didn’t exist."
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