Pete Rose has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Banned from baseball in 1989 for gambling on the Cincinnati Reds team he managed, Rose was offered a lifeline by Commissioner Bart Giamatti, who said at the time: “The burden of living a different focused, reconfigured, rehabilitated life show is entirely up to Pete Rose.” Rose would never take on that burden, despite a group of influential supporters, an argument in his favor that gained enormous popularity over the years and a society that was mainly willing to forgive Rose. His usual inability to get out of the way hindered his chances of returning to the game he truly loved. It could never love him again because Rose wouldn’t let it.

Major League Baseball’s hit king died Monday at the age of 83, and Rose spent the last 35 years of his life in purgatory. He existed in the world of sports: as a guest at independent league ballparks, then as an anchor for Fox, and finally in big league stadiums where teams Rose played on were honored decades later. However, Rose believed he was center stage, viewing his life through the lens of his on-field performance and ignoring the discoloration caused by his actions.

That has always been the difficulty with Rose: separating the artist from the art. Rose lived as he played: all id, primal to the core, aggressive on the borderline of reckless, with little ability to recognize boundaries – and even less to adhere to them. Rose’s baseball career is undeniable: 4,256 hits in 3,562 games, and it’s unlikely either major league record will ever be broken. He made 17 All-Star Games, won three World Series and earned an NL MVP award.

Reconciling that with his decisions clouds any argument about Rose. Because elements of his behavior ranged from poor to disgusting. There were accusations – and evidence – that Rose had corked his bat. He spent five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges in 1990. More recently, in 2017, ESPN’s William Weinbaum reported that a woman filed an affidavit claiming she had a sexual relationship with Rose in the 1970s before she turned 16 years old. , the age of consent in Ohio. Rose, who was 34 and married at the time of the alleged relationship, acknowledged it but said he believed it started in 1975, when the girl was 16.

The statement came as part of Rose’s lawsuit against John Dowd, who had accused Rose of statutory rape in a 2015 radio interview — a lawsuit that was later dismissed. Dowd spoke about Rose more than a quarter century after he wrote the damning report on his gambling, commissioned by MLB and released in 1989. “In the Matter Of Peter Edward Rose” was a 228-page decimation of Rose’s career, a comprehensive look at Rose’s history. have committed baseball’s cardinal sin: gambling on the game.

Rule 21 is clear: “Any player, umpire, club or league official or employee who shall wager any amount on any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently disqualified.” Rose understood this. He accepted the lifetime ban that Giamatti issued in 1989. And yet, for the next fifteen years, Rose denied gambling on the game. His hubris poisoned his ability to position himself for reinstatement.

In the early 2000s, Commissioner Bud Selig offered Rose a chance at recovery. There were conditions attached. He should come clean. No more casino gigs, no more gambling. Rose could have had everything he wanted, everything everyone wanted for him. And he passed it on, a self-inflicted wound in all their lives.

It wasn’t until he wrote a book in 2004 that Rose finally admitted that he was gambling as a manager – and he rationalized it by saying he was only betting on the Cincinnati Reds to win. And so Rose operated. Even in his attempts to redeem himself in the eyes of the gatekeepers who could allow his return to the game, he trafficked in half-truths and questionable decisions. Years later, when ESPN reported that Rose had bet as a player, he still wouldn’t admit it, even with the mountain of evidence behind it.

Nevertheless, the full embrace of gambling in professional sports gave Rose a new lifeline. In 2015, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred had denied his request for reinstatement, and subsequent attempts by Rose were greeted with similar results. His supporters — former teammates, Hall of Famers and fans who believe baseball’s all-time hits leader deserves a place in the game regardless of his actions — have never stopped supporting Rose.

Most of all, they wanted to see Rose in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, a place already populated by men of ill repute. Players on MLB’s permanently ineligible list are not allowed to be inducted into the Hall of Fame — and in 2020, ESPN’s Don Van Natta reported that this rule applies to individuals after their deaths after an MLB source said the league has no control over banning players after they have died.

The path to forgiveness is straight and narrow. Pete Rose lived a bit crookedly. He liked it so much – and people liked him for it. He turned his nose up at MLB, happy to be able to open his store in Cooperstown, New York, and sign autographs during the Hall of Fame induction weekend — a kind of proto-troll. That kind of attitude stuck with him until the end, when he continued to sell autographed baseballs with the inscription, “Sorry, I Bet on Baseball.” In reality, he didn’t regret betting on baseball so much as he regretted what betting on baseball did to him.

It gave Rose perhaps the cruelest existence imaginable for an all-time great in a sport that enjoys little more than celebrating its history: being inconsistent. He was forever what could have been. And in the end, Rose’s greatest enemy was not Dowd, not Giamatti, not Manfred, not any of the men in suits passing judgment on the man in uniform.

Unfortunately, Pete Rose’s biggest enemy was Pete Rose.