Report: MLB hit king Pete Rose dies at 83

[Lee]

Quote

 

Longtime MLB star Pete Rose died on Monday afternoon, his agent confirmed to TMZ.

He was 83. Specifics surrounding his death are not yet known.

Rose spent 24 years in Major League Baseball, and he retired as the league’s all-time hits leader, among other things. The Cincinnati native got his start with the Reds in 1963, and he spent the first 16 seasons of his career with the organization. He won a pair of World Series titles in 1975 and 1976, which marked the club’s first championships in 35 years.

Rose then spent a five-year run with the Philadelphia Phillies, and he won his third World Series title there in 1980. He then spent half of a season with the Montreal Expos in 1984 before returning to Cincinnati that year to wrap up his playing career.

Rose finished with 4,256 hits, which is the most in MLB history. He’s one of just two players, along with Ty Cobb, to even surpass the 4,000-hits mark. Rose also holds MLB records for games played (3,562), plate appearances (15,890) and at bats (14,053). Rose won three batting titles and two Gold Glove awards throughout his career, and he picked up 17 All-Star nods. He was the league’s MVP in 1973, when he held a .388 batting average with 230 hits, five home runs and 64 RBI.

“I am the winningest athlete in team sport history,” Rose told the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2018. “To me, my biggest record is the number of winning games I played in. And that’s also a testament to all the great teammates I played with.”

Rose spent seven seasons as the Reds’ manager, including the final few seasons when he was still playing. He won two divisional titles while in that role and finished with a 412-373 overall record. Rose’s career ended in scandal, however, as he was banned from the sport for live in 1989 for gambling on games while he was the Reds’ manager — including on his own team’s games.

That lifetime ban, which has been debated constantly through the years as new commissioners took over the league, has kept him out of the Baseball Hall of Fame. He tried to be reinstated in 2015 in a final bid to make it in, but current commissioner Rob Manfred denied it. Gambling on games the way he did, Rose said, was his only regret.

“There’s only one thing I would change if I had to live it all over again … I would obviously turn my life around and not bet on baseball,” Rose told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Having said that, I feel like I’ve been a pretty good citizen.

“You never read about me being in a bar after hours, beating up my wife, or getting into a fight with a fan and I was as gracious to everyone as I could be.”

https://sports.yahoo.com/report-mlb-hit-king-pete-rose-dies-at-83-231616652.html

 

 

[Mike J]

RIP Charlie Hustle.  Awesome player and unfortunate that he screwed himself out the Hall of Fame.

[JJReyes]

His gambling kept Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame.  There is also opinion by several commentators that the honor maybe bestowed after he passes away.  You can't ignore his accomplishments.

[Lee]

I get the whole MLB ban on gambling as the 1919 White Sox scandal almost shut down the league for good. It has been said that if Ruth hadn't come along and started swatting the long ball, MLB might have simply folded up and disappeared as all trust with the public had been lost.

Almost 80 years later, the baseball world had to watch the buffoonery of M McGuire chasing down Maris's HR record. At the end, MM would go through this inane ritual of kissing his fingers, pounding his chest, and pointing to the sky. When he broke the record, the Maris family was in the front row to witness this charade.

MM, his teammates, and MLB insiders at the time knew that he had cheated for the whole season to surpass this record.

How MM could face the Maris family while continuing to cheat is beyond me.

(Yes, I aware that several other players were also cheating at the time but IMO none made an a__ out of himself quite like MM.)

This is about the time that a lifetime fan since I was a kid disengaged with the MLB.

I find MM behavior a bit more egregious than anything that PR did.

 

 

Edited October 1 by Lee

[OnMyWay]

2 hours ago, Lee said:

MM, his teammates, and MLB insiders at the time knew that he had cheated for the whole season to surpass this record.

Are you referring to steroids?  If so, really getting in to it with him would open up a whole can of worms that nobody wanted to open.  So, they look the other way.  The gambling was easy to isolate.

 

2 hours ago, Lee said:

This is about the time that a lifetime fan since I was a kid disengaged with the MLB.

I started disengaging after the first player's strike in '72.  It was all downhill from there.  Although some of the player grievances have been justified over the years, the ridiculous player salaries are not.  That goes for most pro sports.  It doesn't hurt the owners.  The fans pay for it with higher ticket prices.  Around that time, late 70's, my buddies and I could go sit in the bleachers at Dodger stadium for $1.50 and afford a beer or two.  I wonder how much those cost now?

[earthdome]

3 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

Are you referring to steroids?  If so, really getting in to it with him would open up a whole can of worms that nobody wanted to open.  So, they look the other way.  The gambling was easy to isolate.

 

I started disengaging after the first player's strike in '72.  It was all downhill from there.  Although some of the player grievances have been justified over the years, the ridiculous player salaries are not.  That goes for most pro sports.  It doesn't hurt the owners.  The fans pay for it with higher ticket prices.  Around that time, late 70's, my buddies and I could go sit in the bleachers at Dodger stadium for $1.50 and afford a beer or two.  I wonder how much those cost now?

The game is all about home runs now. I liked the game when there was more strategy. The small ball game. Stolen bases, bunts, pitching changes in the NL with no DH. Now everyone swings for the fence and strike outs are way up.

[OnMyWay]

2 hours ago, earthdome said:

The small ball game. Stolen bases, bunts, pitching changes in the NL with no DH.

That is what I grew up with in the early 60s as a LA Dodgers fan.  I had a little portable radio I would sneak into bed and listen to Vin Scully reporting the games with Koufax, Drysdale, Roseboro, Wills, Perranoski, etc.  And a game against the dreaded Giants was not to be missed!

[craftbeerlover]

22 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

That is what I grew up with in the early 60s as a LA Dodgers fan.  I had a little portable radio I would sneak into bed and listen to Vin Scully reporting the games with Koufax, Drysdale, Roseboro, Wills, Perranoski, etc.  And a game against the dreaded Giants was not to be missed!

I still have a hard time believing that I actually would listen to entire baseball games on the radio.  And yet, I did, and enjoyed it

[craftbeerlover]

On 10/2/2024 at 12:07 PM, earthdome said:

The game is all about home runs now. I liked the game when there was more strategy. The small ball game. Stolen bases, bunts, pitching changes in the NL with no DH. Now everyone swings for the fence and strike outs are way up.

We had our share of Dave Kingman's back in the day, but yes I agree

[earthdome]

18 hours ago, craftbeerlover said:

I still have a hard time believing that I actually would listen to entire baseball games on the radio.  And yet, I did, and enjoyed it

Did the same all summer. Listen to the Cubs on WGN while playing wiffle ball or maybe a neighborhood game of baseball.