The story of baseball cannot be told without Pete Rose.
Major League Baseball’s all-time leader in base hits, with 4,256, has also played more games than any other player in league history.
In many ways, Rose is baseball. But in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY, his plaque is nowhere to be found. His statistics, his achievements and his impact on the sport speak for themselves — but those aren’t enough to turn the black cloud over Rose’s head into sunshine.
“There’s nothing I can change about the history of Pete Rose,” the baseball legend recently told KTLA in a new interview.
That history is a complicated one.
At the tail end of his long playing career, primarily for the Cincinnati Reds, Rose became the team’s player-manager, an ultra-rare position in sports. After a few seasons, he hung up his cleats and just managed the team.
In 1989, while still serving as the club’s manager, reports began to surface that Rose had placed bets on baseball. The ensuing controversy resulted in a legacy-shifting decision in August of that year when he accepted a deal with MLB to be permanently placed on the league’s ineligibility list.
That meant he couldn’t participate in MLB in an official capacity — ever again. In 1991, it was ruled that individuals on the ineligibility list couldn’t be inducted into the Hall of Fame. He likely would have been a first-ballot induction just the following year.
After years of denial, in 2004, Rose publicly admitted to betting on baseball — and the Reds —during his career.
“Eventually, everybody in the world is going to hear me say, I’m sorry I bet on baseball,” Rose said.
Rose is convinced he deserves a second chance and recognizes, at 83 years old, that time might be running out. The three-time World Series champion wants to be a Hall of Famer.
As he looks back on life, Rose says “I keep convincing myself or telling myself, ‘hang in there, Pete, you’ll get a second chance.’”
“I’ve been suspended for over 30 years and haven’t been close to a second chance,” he said. “And I won’t need a third chance.”
Watch Derrin Horton’s full report and interview with Pete Rose on Sunday’s Sports Final on Sept. 8 at 11:35 p.m.