Baseball Legend Pete Rose Dead, 83
Las Vegas, NV – Baseball legend Pete Rose died on Monday, the Cincinnati Reds announced. Rose was 83 years old.
TMZ reported that the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner in Nevada determined Rose’s official cause of death to be hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
Over the weekend, Rose had appeared at an autograph show in Nashville with former teammates Tony Pérez, George Foster, and Dave Concepción.
Rose was a Major League Baseball player and member of the Cincinnati Reds for 24 years, starting his career with the team in 1963, where he played for 16 years.
He won a pair of World Series titles in 1975 and 1976, which marked the club’s first championships in 35 years.
Rose won his third World Series title with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980, as part of a five-year stint in Philadelphia. He then spent half a season with the Montreal Expos in 1984 before returning to Cincinnati that year to finish his playing career.
Rose holds the record for most hits in MLB history, with 4,256, surpassing Ty Cobb (4,191). Rose and Cobb are the only two Major Leaguers to surpass 4,000 hits.
Rose also holds MLB records for games played (3,562), plate appearances (15,890), and at-bats (14,053). He won three batting titles and two Gold Glove awards during his career, and he earned 17 All-Star selections. Rose was the league’s MVP in 1973, when he posted a .338 batting average with 230 hits, five home runs, and 64 RBIs.
However, Rose’s career ended in scandal when he was banned from the sport in 1989 for gambling on games — including his own team’s games — while he was the Reds’ manager.
His lifetime ban, which has been debated for years, has kept Rose out of the Baseball Hall of Fame. He attempted reinstatement in 2015 in a final bid to be eligible for induction, but current commissioner Rob Manfred denied the request. Rose stated that gambling on games was his only regret.
Despite his ban, Rose was honored in other ways. The Reds inducted him into the team’s Hall of Fame in 2016, and a year later, a bronze sculpture of Rose’s iconic slide was unveiled outside Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park. The team also retired his uniform number.
While Rose the man was never inducted into Cooperstown, his career is well represented at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Items on display include his helmet from his MVP 1973 season, the bat he used during his 44-game hitting streak in 1978, and the cleats he wore in 1985 when he became baseball’s all-time hits leader.