Pete Rose, Controversial Baseball Legend and Gambler, Dead at 83

Major League Baseball’s all-time hit leader, Pete Rose, died this week at 83. On Monday, September 31, the former Cincinnati Reds star and three-time World Series winner passed away from complications from heart disease at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Rose, nicknamed Charlie Hustle for his consistent running and aggressive play, was a 17-time MLB All Star and three-time World Series winner. He also holds the record for the most MLB appearances and hits.

Despite all of his baseball achievements, Rose later became infamous for his high-stakes sports betting habit. In 1989, then Reds player-manager Rose was banned by MLB after he was found to have bet on many baseball games over a series of years. That included bets on the Reds while he was a player. 

A year later, in 1990, he was sentenced to five months in prison on tax evasion charges. Rose never made the Baseball Hall of Fame, despite his induction being a certainty if he hadn’t faced the scandal over his sports betting and tax affairs.

All-Star Career 

Rose began playing baseball from a young age at school in the Cincinnati, Ohio, suburb of Western Hills. In 1960, his hometown team, the Cincinnati Reds, signed the young Rose straight out of high school. 

The Reds signed him for a $7,000 per year contract, around $74,446 today, accounting for inflation. During his first season for the Reds, Rose was given the nickname Charlie Hustle for his habit of running to a base even when he could walk. 

He made his MLB debut in 1963, and won Rookie of the Year that season with a .273 batting average. In 1963, Rose served in the United States Army Reserves as a cook at Fort Knox while still playing Reds home games on the weekend. The following season, his form dipped and he was benched.

In the winter of 1964, Rose attempted to sharpen his skills by playing in the Venezuelan Winter League.

It apparently worked. When he returned to MLB in 1965, Rose did not look back. He went on to hit the All-Star team 17 times over the next 20 years.

He also won three World Series during that time, two with the Reds and one with the Philadelphia Phillies, whom he joined in 1981. The run included an MVP performance in the memorable 1975 World Series between the Reds and Boston Red Sox.

In 1984, he came back to the Reds as a 42-year old player/manager. In 1985, he reached the all-time MLB career hit record, beating Ty Cobb’s previous best with his 4,192 hits. He retired in 1986 and became a full-time manager, guiding the team to four years of second place in their division. However, by the end of the 1980s, Rose’s previously stellar career would face an ignoble turn.

The Gambling 

An MLB investigation into Rose’s gambling began in 1989. He denied it for years, but the investigation eventually found that he had definitely bet on Cincinnati Reds games between 1985 and 1987. It was widely reported that teammates had speculated and become concerned about Rose’s betting as far back as the 1970s.

By the last months of 1989, Rose accepted his lifetime ban from baseball. It also made him ineligible for a 1991 Hall of Fame induction, for which he would have no doubt made the cut.

In his post-baseball career, he took a different tack and somewhat embraced legal gambling as it spread across the U.S. He regularly was spotted at casinos in Ohio, doing promotional work for some, and even moved to Las Vegas in his later years. 

“I don’t think betting is morally wrong. I don’t even think betting on baseball is morally wrong,” he wrote in a 2019 memoir, Play Hungry.  

“There are legal ways, and there are illegal ways, and betting on baseball the way I did was against the rules of baseball.”

Death and Legacy 

Rose may not have made the baseball Hall of Fame, but he certainly had a huge fanbase who thought he deserved induction. That included former President Donald Trump, who posted his support for Rose’s failed Hall of Fame bid in 2015. The Reds built a statue of him, posed in his iconic Charlie Hustle slide to the base, and they retired the number he wore, 14, in his honor. 

However, others look to him as a cautionary tale of gambling gone wrong. A player who had it all but couldn’t resist the allure of the odds table. 

Pete Rose died of complications from heart disease in his home in Las Vegas on September 31, 2024, age 83. He had attended a baseball fans meet and greet event in Tennessee the day prior. He is survived by his five children, Pete Rose Jr., Chea, Tyler, Morgan, and Fawn.