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Join Telegram ChannelPete Rose captivated Major League Baseball audiences for 24 years in three different organizations as he set all-time records for hits, at-bats and games played.
The Clark County, Nevada coroner confirmed to Fox News on Monday that Rose died at the age of 83. The cause of death was not immediately known. As news of his death spread around the world, tributes and memories poured in.
“Charlie Hustle”, as he was known during his glory days with the Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds and Montreal Expos, was remembered as a polarizing figure in the baseball world who seemed all give, whether he played in the afternoon, evening or evening. exhibition games.
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Pete Rose of the Philadelphia Phillies slides to third base during a baseball game against the New York Mets in Philadelphia on June 3, 1981. (AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy, file)
“Stubborn, determined, relentless, competitive, vicious competitive with what he did to Ray Fosse in the All-Star Game in a game that maybe mattered at the time,” 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 today's stars. “I think he played and cared about the results. He cared about his personal results. He cared about his team's results and he was aggressive. The fans loved him. They loved that he showed up for work every the days and he gives everything and to my knowledge, what we saw on the field is his quest for victory.
Gray recalled some of his earliest memories of Rose on the field when he was a broadcaster of the Phillies pregame shows. Rose played in Philadelphia from 1979 until midway through the 1983 season, when he was traded to the Expos.
The greatness he brought to the field would ultimately be overshadowed during his tenure as Reds manager by a gambling scandal unprecedented in sports since the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
Rose was questioned in February 1989 about whether he had played baseball, and at the time he only admitted to making bets on football, basketball, and horse racing and vehemently denied having bet on baseball. Some of the allegations were detailed in a Sports Illustrated article that prompted attorney John M. Dowd to conduct an investigation and turn it over to then-Commissioner Bart Giamatti.
Dowd's report was submitted to Giamatti in May 1989 and published in June 1989. The report claimed that Rose bet on at least 52 Reds games in 1987.
Pete Rose died on September 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, file)
Rose ultimately agreed to be voluntarily placed on baseball's ineligibility list with the option to seek reinstatement. Gray told Fox News Digital that Rose and Giamatti wanted to know how he could get back into the game, but Rose's attorney, Reuven Katz, didn't want his client to admit to playing baseball and accept the offer he was offered. proposed – which included Rose seeking significant help for addiction and rehabilitation.
According to Gray, Dowd told him that Katz told Giamatti, “Peter is a legend.” To which Giamatti replied: “No, baseball is a legend.”
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Rose requested reinstatement in 1992, 1998, 2003, 2015, 2020 and 2022. However, each commissioner, Fay Vincent, Bud Selig and Rob Manfred, never acted on this request or outright denied Rose's requests. Being on the ineligibility list prevented Rose from being enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Support for Rose seemed to be split among legends of the game. Ted Williams said in 2000 that he didn't think Rose should be in the Hall Fame.
“I feel sorry for Pete Rose, but he committed baseball's cardinal sin. He gambled,” he told the New York Times.
Former Philadelphia Phillies player Pete Rose greets fans during an alumni day on August 7, 2022 in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, file)
Mike Schmidt admitted in 2017 that Rose wouldn't make the Hall of Fame, but wondered why the hitting machine never got the “same level of forgiveness” as the other guys when it came to drug-enhancing drugs. performances, 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 a member of the All-Team. Century.
Additionally, as sports betting became more prevalent in the United States, Manfred made it 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 didn't think it was strange that Rose was still ineligible even with baseball's close ties to gambling.
“No, I don’t find it 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 it was happening. He signed his own ban from baseball with the option to reapply and none of those requests were granted .
Former Cincinnati Reds player Pete Rose greets fans after being introduced during the Reds Hall of Fame induction ceremony July 15, 2023, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, file)
“So he knew the conditions, and he agreed to those conditions. And just because times and things have changed doesn't mean the main fundamental issue has changed. And that's every active manager, player or player. no matter who an official involved in baseball will ever bet on the sport, no sport will ever allow that, and if caught doing so, the punishment must be severe.
Gray added that he still thinks Rose deserves to be in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown, but with an explanation for her wrongdoing.
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“That says all that and I understand that the Hall of Famer goes along with banning baseball and banning gambling. We don't live in the Soviet Union. And you can't erase the records of a man. And what he did on the field is worthy of the Hall of Fame because he had more success than anyone, and he was prolific in that area. Obviously, never came in his lifetime If they were to do it posthumously, maybe it should reflect that he was banned from baseball and the reason and the reason on the plate – for gambling. be in the Hall of Fame.
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