Pete Rose

Peter Edward Rose was born on April 14, 1941, in Cincinnati, Ohio, one of four children of Harry Francis "Pete" Rose and LaVerne (née Bloebaum) Rose. His parents encouraged him to play sports. Although small for his age, he earned the starting running back position on his freshman football team at Western Hills High School. After failing to make the varsity football team, he lost interest in his studies and repeated his sophomore year, because he chose summer baseball over summer school. In the spring of 1960 he played in the Dayton Amateur League for a team sponsored by Frisch's Big Boy of Lebanon, Ohio, batting .626 while playing catcher, second base and shortstop.

Rose attended Western Hills High School in Cincinnati, graduating in 1960 after repeating his sophomore year. By his senior year he had used up his high school sports eligibility. He did not attend college. After his rookie season in 1963 he entered the United States Army Reserves, serving six months of active duty at Fort Knox, where he was a platoon guide, followed by six years with the 478th Engineering Battalion at Fort Thomas, Kentucky.

Thanks to his uncle Buddy Bloebaum, a Reds scout, Rose signed with Cincinnati in 1960 for $7,000 and played in the minors, including for the Macon Peaches. In spring training in 1963 Whitey Ford gave him the derisive nickname "Charlie Hustle", which he adopted as a badge of honour. He debuted on April 8, 1963, against the Pittsburgh Pirates and won NL Rookie of the Year.

He led the league in hits in 1965, won batting titles in 1968 and 1969, and in 1970 famously bowled over catcher Ray Fosse to score the winning run of the All-Star Game. In 1973 he led the league with 230 hits and a .338 average and was named NL MVP. With Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Pérez he led the Big Red Machine; he moved to third base at Sparky Anderson's request in 1975, was World Series MVP that year, and won a second title in 1976. In 1978 he got his 3,000th hit on May 5 and had a 44-game hitting streak from June 14 to August 1.

He joined the Philadelphia Phillies in 1979 on a four-year, $3.2 million contract, briefly making him the highest-paid athlete in team sports, and won the 1980 World Series with them. With the Montreal Expos he collected his 4,000th hit on April 13, 1984. Traded back to Cincinnati in August 1984, he became player-manager, and on September 11, 1985, broke Ty Cobb's record with his 4,192nd hit. His last at-bat came on August 17, 1986, and he finished with 4,256 hits, a .303 average and MLB records for hits, games played, at-bats, singles and outs.

Rose managed the Reds from August 1984 until August 24, 1989. During his four full seasons (1985 to 1988) the Reds finished second in the NL West each year without reaching the playoffs. In 1988 NL president A. Bartlett Giamatti suspended him for 30 days after he shoved umpire Dave Pallone, still the longest suspension given to a manager for an on-field incident. In 2014 he managed the independent Bridgeport Bluefish for one game.

Rose married Karolyn Englehardt on January 25, 1964. They had a daughter, Fawn (born 1964), and a son, Pete Rose Jr. (born 1969), and divorced in 1980. In a 1996 settlement of a paternity suit he acknowledged Morgan Erin Rubio as his daughter. In 1984 he married Carol J. Woliung, a former Playboy Bunny and Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader; they had a son, Tyler (born 1984), and a daughter, Cara (born 1989), who acts under the name Chea Courtney. Rose filed for divorce from Carol in March 2011. He was later engaged to Kiana Kim from 2011, though they never married, and the couple and her children Cassie and Ashton featured in the 2013 TLC series Pete Rose: Hits and Mrs. He lived in Las Vegas in his later years.

Rose built his identity around relentless effort, running out every walk and diving headfirst into bases. He long argued that his gambling never affected the outcome of games, and in a 2020 reinstatement petition contrasted it with steroid use and electronic sign stealing, which he said did affect games without leading to bans. He insisted he bet on the Reds to win every night because he believed in his team. At a 2010 roast in Indiana he wept while acknowledging he had "disrespected baseball" and apologised to his Big Red Machine teammates.

Rose remains MLB's all-time leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053), singles (3,215) and outs (10,328). His records are widely regarded as unbreakable. He was named to the MLB All-Century Team in 1999, receiving the loudest ovation of any member at Turner Field. The Reds retired his number 14 in 2016, inducted him into the Reds Hall of Fame that year, and unveiled a bronze statue by Tom Tsuchiya of his headfirst slide at Great American Ball Park in 2017. In 2025 the Reds wore number 14 patches all season in his memory. His posthumous reinstatement in May 2025 reopened the debate over his place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, with a Classic Baseball era committee vote expected in December 2027.

NL Rookie of the Year (1963); 17 time All-Star; three World Series titles (1975, 1976, 1980); NL MVP (1973); World Series MVP (1975); three NL batting titles (1968, 1969, 1973); two Gold Glove Awards (1969, 1970); Silver Slugger Award (1981); Hutch Award (1968); Lou Gehrig Memorial Award (1969); Roberto Clemente Award (1976); Sporting News and ABC Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year (1985); MLB All-Century Team (1999); WWE Hall of Fame celebrity wing (2004); Baseball Reliquary Shrine of the Eternals (2010); Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and number 14 retired (2016).

Rose's 2004 autobiography My Prison Without Bars contained his first public admission of betting on baseball. ESPN aired the 2004 television film Hustle, starring Tom Sizemore and directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Andy Warhol made a 1985 screenprint of him, and Billy Joel referenced him in the 1978 song "Zanzibar". Between 1998 and 2000 he appeared at three WrestleMania events in a running feud with Kane, and in 2010 he guest hosted WWE Raw. He was a Fox Sports studio analyst from 2015 to 2017 and featured in the TLC show Pete Rose: Hits and Mrs. (2013). Books about him include Kostya Kennedy's Pete Rose: An American Dilemma (2014) and Keith O'Brien's Charlie Hustle (2024).

In 1989 an investigation by John M. Dowd for Commissioner Giamatti documented alleged bets on 52 Reds games in 1987. Rose sued to stop a hearing, then on August 24, 1989, accepted permanent ineligibility in exchange for no formal finding. He denied betting on baseball until his 2004 autobiography. Commissioners Fay Vincent and Bud Selig never acted on his reinstatement applications, and Rob Manfred rejected them in 2015 and 2022.

On April 20, 1990, he pleaded guilty to two counts of filing false income tax returns over unreported autograph, memorabilia and horse racing income; he served five months at the federal prison camp in Marion, Illinois, was fined $50,000, and paid $366,041 in back taxes and interest. In 2010 Deadspin reported that X-rays of bats he used in 1985 showed signs of corking, which he had denied.

In 2017 a court filing in his defamation suit against Dowd included a sworn statement from a woman who said Rose had a sexual relationship with her in the 1970s when she was a minor. Rose acknowledged the relationship but said he believed she was 16. The Phillies cancelled his Wall of Fame ceremony, and Fox Sports let him go. The suit was dismissed by agreement in December 2017.

Rose died at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, on September 30, 2024, aged 83. He had attended an autograph event in Franklin, Tennessee, the day before. The Clark County coroner gave the cause as hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The Reds said they were "heartbroken to learn of the passing of baseball legend Pete Rose", and fans left messages on a tribute banner at the gates of Great American Ball Park. On February 10, 2025, the Reds announced number 14 patches for the whole season. On May 13, 2025, MLB ruled that permanent bans expire at death, reinstating him posthumously.