Pete Rose, record-breaking giant of baseball whose gambling habits led to his expulsion from the game

Pete Rose, who has died aged 83, was one of the greatest players in the history of baseball; but he was also one of the most controversial, and three years after retiring as a player, while manager of “the Red Machine”, his beloved Cincinnati Reds, he was banned from the sport for life for betting on his own team.

Rose won three World Series rings and was named to the All-Star team 17 times (in an unequalled five different fielding positions); he was the all-time leader in a string of metrics such as hits (4,256), at-bats (14,053), games played (3,562) and singles (when a batter reaches first base after hitting the ball, 3,215). Such was his longevity and consistency, many scholars of baseball believe that some of his records will never be broken.

One of the most gritty and determined players the game has seen, he was in his pomp in the 1970s. Just as baseball was throwing itself into the modern world, with artificial pitches, and free agency for the players, he was a brash, pugnacious throwback to simpler times, nicknamed “Charlie Hustle” for his habit of running – unnecessarily – to first base when given a “walk” (a walk is when a batter receives four pitches outside the strike zone and can proceed to first base at his leisure), as well as for his epic head-first slides when stealing bases.

“You could see he was going to be something, even in the minor leagues,” recalled Dave Bristol, who managed him in his early days, and later with the Reds. “You knew he was going to set records at something. All that determination. He didn’t hit a ball, he attacked it. He was like a guy breaking up a dogfight. He loved to hit and hit and hit. You go to his hotel room at night, and he’s hitting the bed post.”

Peter Edward Rose was born on April 14 1941 in a blue-collar neighbourhood of Cincinnati, to Harry “Pete” Rose, a bank cashier who had played semi-pro American football, and LaVerne, née Bloebaum. They encouraged his sporting enthusiasms: Harry taught his son to be a switch-hitter, able to bat right- and left-handed, while his brother Dave endlessly pitched rubber balls to him, which he hit with a broom handle.

He played baseball and American football at high school, and in the latter he was the starting running back despite being on the small side for such a position, nicknamed “Pee-Wee” by his friends (he would eventually grow to a powerful 5ft 11in). But baseball was his first love, and in 1960 he began his rise through the Reds’ minor-league affiliates; given his chance in 1963 thanks to a teammate’s groin injury, he became Rookie of the Year, garnering 17 of the 20 available votes.

He was immediately called up to the Army Reserves, serving six months at the Fort Knox base – given time off for Reds games – followed by six years as a reservist with an engineering battalion.

There followed 10 straight seasons in which Rose had more than 200 hits, and nine when his batting average was more than .300 (batting average is the number of hits divided by the number of at-bats, a reliable measure of a batter’s success). In 1968 he passed the 1,000-hit mark, reaching 2,000 five years later and 3,000 in 1978.

In 1973 he was the National League’s Most Valuable Player, and two years later he was named MVP as the Red Machine beat Boston Red Sox over seven games in what many observers believe to be the greatest ever World Series. The following year Cincinnati became only the third side to retain their title, sweeping the New York Yankees and becoming the only team to win all their post-season games.

In 1979 the Philadelphia Phillies, believing that Rose, though by then in his late thirties, was the man to bring them their first World Series title, made him the best-paid player in baseball. He duly delivered, and in 1980 they beat Kansas City Royals 4-2, not needing a seventh game.

In 1982 hit No 3,772 took Rose to second place in the table, moving past another legend of the game, Hank Aaron. His 4,000th hit came in 1984, when he was spending a season with Montreal Expos.

The following year – by now 44 and back with the Reds as player-manager – he broke Ty Cobb’s record, which had stood since 1928. It had become an obsession for Rose, who once said, “I know everything about Ty Cobb except the size of his hat.”

The game, against San Diego Padres, was halted as Rose was presented with the ball and cried on the shoulder of his first-base coach. After the match – which the Reds won 2-0, with Rose scoring both runs – he took a call from President Reagan.

In 1986 Rose retired as a player but continued managing the Reds, leading them to four second-place finishes in their division. But within three years his life and career had crashed down around him.

Betting on baseball had worn a cloak of notoriety since 1920, when several Chicago White Sox players were banned for throwing the previous year’s World Series. In March 1989 Major League Baseball announced that they were conducting an inquiry into allegations that in the 1985, 1986 and 1987 seasons Rose had used a network of friends and associates to bet on baseball, including Reds games.

He denied everything, but witness statements and telephone records were damning, and Rose was given a life ban from the sport he loved. “One of the game’s greatest players has engaged in a variety of acts which have stained the game, and he must now live with the consequences of those acts,” declared the head of MLB, A Bartlett Giamatti. One of those consequences was that Rose was never inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

In 1990 Rose was jailed for five months for filing false income-tax returns concerning his income from selling autographs and memorabilia and from his winnings betting on horse racing.

After more than a decade of public denial about his gambling, in a 2004 memoir, My Prison Without Bars, Rose confessed all, though he insisted that he had never bet on his own side to lose.

In 2022 he was asked about an accusation that he had had sex with an underage girl in the 1970s, replying that she was 16, above the age of consent. In any case, he told the female reporter who brought up the subject, “It was 55 years ago, babe… Who cares what happened 55 years ago?”

Pete Rose married Karolyn Englehardt in 1964; they had a daughter and son (Pete Jr, who followed his father into professional baseball) but divorced in 1980. In 1978 he was named in a paternity suit as the father of another daughter. In 1984 he married Carol Wollung; they had a daughter (Cara, who became an actress under the name Chea Courtney) and a son. They divorced in 2011. Rose also had a long relationship with Kiana Kim, a Playboy model 40 years his junior.

Pete Rose, born April 14 1941, died September 30 2024

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