Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time leader in hits and one of baseball’s most divisive figures, died Monday at his home in Las Vegas. He was 83.
Just weeks before his death, Rose spoke with the sports team of KTLA 5 to reflect on his life, career, controversies and public perception about his place among the greats of American sports.
It was a candid and pragmatic conversation that, unbeknownst to those involved, would prove to be his final interview before his passing.
“There’s nothing I can change about the history of Pete Rose,” Rose said during that interview.
Rose was suspended from baseball for life for betting on games, leaving him ineligible for induction into the MLB Hall of Fame. Decades later, he still clung to the hope of one day being welcomed into that exclusive fraternity.
“I keep convincing myself or telling myself, ‘Hang in there, Pete, you’ll get a second chance.’”
He reflected on the media landscape of 2024, including major sports leagues partnering with gambling companies and advertising betting services during games.
“There’s a lot of people gambling on sports, there’s no question about it,” Rose said. “And ESPN makes a lot of money based on people betting on sports. Baseball makes a lot of money on people betting on sports … I have nothing bad to say about that. Baseball does what it does because it’s the world of baseball and they’re king.”
He said he still enjoyed watching and spectating sports, but said his problems with betting had derailed his life so significantly that he couldn’t stand to even be in the gambling “atmosphere.”
Ultimately, he hoped that time would heal all wounds and his sins would be viewed in context of other sports controversies that have garnered milder punishments.
“It’s been a long time, and there’s been a lot of negative things happen in the world of baseball,” Rose said. “I was absolutely 110% wrong for what I did … and that’s bet on baseball games, and now you’re punished for the rest of your life … When other guys will kill somebody, or they’ll be strung out on drugs and they’ll beat their wives and stuff like that, in a couple years, they’re back in the game.”
Remaining a pariah decades after his scandal, Rose said, is a dilemma he thought many people struggled to reconcile with.
“I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to a lot of people,” he said.
Rose died carrying the burden of his past errors to his grave, still holding out hope that one day he would be forgiven for them.
“This is the one country that gives you a second chance,” Rose said. “I continue to hope that someday I’ll get a second chance, and I won’t need a third.”
Rose will be remembered both for his scandals and his athletic excellence. In his 24 MLB seasons, spent mostly with the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies, he won three World Series titles, was named to 17 MLB All-Star teams and was crowned the 1973 National League MVP.
But the number that hangs over his head and that of the sports world entirely remains 4,256 — the number of hits that propelled him to the top of baseball’s leaderboard, whether the powers that be wish to acknowledge him or not.