by Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time leader who was banned from the sport after betting on his own team as a player and manager, died Monday. He was 83.
The Clark County, Nevada, Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed Rose’s death, the cause of which was not immediately known.
Rose played 24 seasons in the major leagues, the last three as a player-manager. Most famously, he played for the Cincinnati Reds from 1963 to 1978 and again from 1984 to 1986. Rose was placed on the MLB ineligible list in August 1989 after an investigation revealed that he had gambled on baseball – including on his own Reds games – when he was. manager.
He did not admit to gambling on baseball until 2004, when he wrote in his autobiography that he gambled both as a player and a manager, but never against his own team.
Rose was a 17-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion and won the National League MVP award in 1973. He retired after the 1986 season with 4,256 hits, a record that still stands to this day. He also retired the records for games played and at-bats.
Rose, nicknamed ‘Charlie Hustle’, was known for his rough playing style. In the 1970 All-Star Game, he scored the winning run for the National League by colliding with Cleveland Indians catcher Ray Fosse at home plate.
In the years following his ban from baseball, Rose applied for reinstatement several times but was never admitted. The National Hall of Fame also began barring players on its permanently ineligible list from eligibility in 1991, preventing Rose from earning the sport’s highest honor.
Rose faced off-field legal trouble after his suspension. He spent time in prison from July 1990 to January 1991 after pleading guilty to tax evasion.
A court document made public as part of a 2017 lawsuit also alleged that Rose committed statutory rape in the 1970s. In the document, a woman alleged that Rose, then 32, called her in 1973 — when she was 14 or 15 — and then, before she was 16, began “a sexual relationship” with her that “lasted several years.” ”
Rose admitted to having sex with her, but said it was in 1975, when he thought she was 16, the age of consent in Ohio, according to the filing.
The lawsuit that raised the statutory rape allegations was later dismissed, ESPN reported.
A native of Cincinnati, Rose was inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame in 2016. In 1999, he was allowed to take the field in Atlanta as an exception to his ban from appearing at a ceremony for MLB’s All-Century Team.
