Just weeks before baseball king Pete Rose died Monday at the age of 83, he spoke in his final TV interview about his lifetime banishment from the MLB for game betting.

Rose, who still holds the record for most hits in MLB history with 4,256 but is not in the Hall of Fame admitted he was “wrong” during his banishment while speaking to KTLA Los Angeles on September 7.

However, he also stood up for himself, while suggesting that other players had allegedly committed murders and returned to the field.

“It’s been a long time and a lot of negative things have happened in the baseball world,” Rose said. “I was absolutely 110% wrong about what I did… which is betting on baseball games, and now you’re going to be punished for the rest of your life… When other guys kill someone, or they’re hooked on drugs and they They will beat their queens and stuff like that, and in a few years they’ll be back in the game.”

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Pete Rose with the Cincinnati Reds in 1985. (PROPOSE)

According to Baseball Almanac, there have been no reported incidents of a player committing murder and being allowed to return to the major leagues. But in 1920, New York Yankees pitcher Carl Mays hit Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman in the head with a pitch, killing Chapman. Mays continued to play for the Yankees until 1923 and then even played for the Cincinnati Reds and Giants.

The most recent MLB player convicted of murder is former Mets and Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Julio Machado, who was jailed in Venezuela in December 1992 for involuntary murder for shooting a woman after a car accident. Machado’s 12-year sentence was cut short when he was released in 2000, but he never returned to the majors. However, he coached and played in Venezuelan winter baseball leagues after his release.

Meanwhile, Rose was banned from MLB for life in 1989 after an investigation revealed that he not only gambled on MLB games, but went so far as to gamble on games involving the Cincinnati Reds while managing the team. Rose signed an agreement with Commissioner Bart Giamatti that declared him permanently ineligible to play baseball but allowed him to petition for reinstatement and avoid a formal declaration that he was betting on baseball. Several of Rose’s appeals for reinstatement over the decades have failed.

“There is nothing I can change about Pete Rose’s history,” Rose said.

However, Rose held out hope that he would get back into it one day, bringing up the fact that sports gambling has become a legalized multi-million dollar industry that MLB and major sports brands have embraced, even though it was illegal when Rose was caught. .

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“I keep convincing myself or telling myself, ‘Hang in there, Pete, you’re going to get a second chance,’” he said. “There’s a lot of people betting on sports, there’s no doubt about that. And ESPN makes a lot of money off of people betting on sports. Baseball makes a lot of money off of people betting on sports… I have nothing bad to say about that say Baseball does what it does because it’s the baseball world and they are king.

“I don’t think it makes much sense for people.”

Although sports gambling has become a lucrative and widely used industry, professional athletes in multiple leagues are still subject to discipline for betting on their own sports. In June, former Pirates player Tucupita Marcano was also banned from MLB for life after an investigation revealed he placed 387 baseball bets totaling more than $150,000 in October 2022 and with a legal sportsbook from July through November. Like Rose, it was discovered that Marcano had bet on his own team.

Marcano became the first active player since 1924 to receive a life ban for such offenses, as Rose received his ban as manager three years after his playing career ended.

In March, Rose commented on a gambling scandal involving Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, after an investigation revealed that Mizuhara stole $4.5 million from Ohtani and bet on MLB games under the name of the superstar.

“Well, in the ’70s and ’80s, I wish I would have had an interpreter. I would have been free,” Rose said in a video on X.

As a player, Rose won three World Series titles, two with the Reds and one with the Philllies, while appearing in seventeen All-Star games and winning NL MVP in 1973. Still, his gambling scandal has made him one of the most controversial holdouts. the baseball Hall of Fame since his retirement. He would not live to see if he would make it after he was found dead at his home in Clark County, Nevada on Monday.

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Pete Rose died on September 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

According to multiple reports, Rose was not under the care of a doctor at the time of his death. His home is under investigation and the cause of death is still under investigation.

Rose’s death came just one day after he visited the Williamson County Agricultural EXPO Park on Sunday afternoon, where he signed autographs with Ken Griffey Sr., Dave Concepcion, Tony Perez and George Foster, according to Newsday.

“He was just smiling, taking pictures with the fans and signing lots of autographs,” said Michelle Phelps, who worked Sunday’s show with her husband.

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