Pete Rose — Major League Baseball’s hit king and a member of the 1980 World Series Champion Phillies — has passed away at age 83, his agent Ryan Fiterman told TMZ Sports.
Rose leaves behind one of the most complicated legacies not only in sports history, but in American history.
As a baseball player, Rose is one of the most accomplished players in the history of the sport. He was a 17-time All-Star, won the 1973 NL MVP and was the World Series MVP with the Cincinnati Reds in 1975.
While he was most remembered for the 19 years he spent across two stints with “the Big Red Machine” Reds, Rose did spend half a decade with the Phillies from 1979-1983. Over that period he accumulated 826 of his MLB record 4,256 hits, and helped Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton and Larry Bowa, among others, finally get over the hump and deliver the first World Series in team history in 1980.
However, Rose accepted a lifetime ban for betting on baseball as the manager of the Reds on Aug. 24, 1989. This made him ineligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, and ultimately means he died without being enshrined in Cooperstown.
Rose was scheduled to be put onto the Phillies Wall of Fame in 2017, but the ceremony was cancelled after allegations of statutory rape from the 1970s surfaced. Rose was 34 when the relationship is said to have taken place, but said in court documents obtained by ESPN that he believed the girl was 16 years old, which was the legal age of consent in Ohio, where the actions took place.
When the Phillies celebrated the 1980 World Series team during Alumni Weekend in 2022, Rose was invited back to Citizens Bank Park. A female reporter asked Rose about the allegations, and he responded by saying “It was 55 years ago, babe.”
Rose’s handler later brought the reporter over to him, trying to clear the air. The exchange — captured in episode three the HBO mini series “Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose” — went as follows. It was also witnessed firsthand by Phillies Nation.
Rose said: “Were we speaking, or was she attacking me?”
Reporter: “I introduced myself as a reporter and I asked you a question?”
Handler: “You didn’t mean to offend her?”
Rose: “Oh no. Did I call you a name?”
Reporter: “You called me babe, I have it on record.”
Rose: “Think they’ll throw me in jail for that?”
Handler: “But you didn’t mean to offend her?”
Rose: “No, I didn’t mean to offend anybody. I was on my way down the runway, I was sweating my butt off. You’re not old enough to offend me.”
Handler: “I think he just wanted to tell you that he didn’t mean to offend.”
Rose: “I didn’t even realize I said that.”
Handler: “He just wanted to tell you that if you felt offended, he wanted to apologize.”
Rose: “Will you forgive me if I send you a thousand balls?”
Handler: “No, that’s the last thing she needs. But he wanted to apologize.”
Rose: “Have a good day, sorry.”
Reporter: “Yep.”
Another reporter tried to bring up the topic later in a press availability with Rose, and he became agitated.
“I want to tell you one more time … I’m here for the Phillie fans,” Rose said. “… I’m here for my teammates … I’m here for the Phillie organization, and who cares what happened 50 years ago? You weren’t even born, so you shouldn’t be talking about it because you weren’t born. And if you don’t know a damn thing about it, don’t talk about it.”
As it turned out, that would be the final time Rose was at Citizens Bank Park. Now that he’s passed, there will certainly be calls to finally put him in the Hall of Fame, which he is deserving of as a player. The human being got in the way of the player while Rose was still on the Earth.
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