Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time leader in hits but a three-time world champion and 17-time All-Star, who remains out of the sport’s Hall of Fame after it was discovered he had gambled on baseball while managing late last year the Cincinnati Reds 1980s, died Monday at his home in Las Vegas.

He was 83.

Rose, who retired in 1986, managed the Reds from 1984 to 1989, when he was banned by Major League Baseball for game betting.

Although he agreed to the ban, Rose denied his gambling involvement for almost fifteen years – despite mountains of evidence to the contrary – before admitting to gambling in his 2004 autobiography.

Rose said he had bet on the Reds, but never against them.

“I’d rather die than lose a baseball game,” Rose wrote. “I hate to lose. There is no temptation on earth that could make me fix a game.

Bart Giamatti, then the MLB commissioner, placed Rose on baseball’s permanently ineligible list — Giamatti died eight days later of a massive heart attack — where Rose remained until his death, despite repeatedly appealing over the years had done to Giamatti’s successors.

Rose’s name has never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot — although he did receive some write-in votes — nor is he eligible to be considered by any of the Hall’s veterans committees.

Before his banishment, Rose had prepared a resume that would have led him to Cooperstown on the first ballot, accompanied by a marching band.

In 24 seasons with the Reds, Phillies and Expos, the switch hitter had 4,256 hits – 67 more than Ty Cobb (4,189), who had held the record since 1928 before Rose passed him in 1986.

Rose is also baseball’s all-time leader in singles, games played, at-bats and at-bats.

Rose was an integral part of Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine that won the World Series in 1975 and 1976 and also won a world championship with the Phillies in 1980.

He won three batting titles while posting a lifetime batting average of .303, winning an MVP award and two Gold Gloves.

He was named to the NL All-Star team at a record five different positions (second base, third base, first base, right field and left field).

But it was gambling on baseball games and his glaring absence from the Hall for which he was best known, although a case could be made that he is best known in the New York area for his famous performance with Mets shortstop Bud Harrelson after a hard run into second base by Rose during a 1973 NL playoff game at Shea Stadium.

It sparked a bench clearing brawl and caused the game to be postponed when Mets fans pelted Rose with everything they could find as he went out to play left field in the bottom half of that inning.

“Pete Rose cared too much about baseball to die in left field at Shea Stadium,” Reds manager Sparky Anderson said after taking his team off the field for several minutes before play finally resumed.

Peter Edward Rose was born on April 14, 1941 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of LaVerne and the demanding Harry Rose.

A two-sport star (baseball, football) at Western Hills High School, Rose’s baseball career might have ended in high school if not for an uncle — a low-level scout for the team — who convinced the potential poor Reds to sign him. .

He began his professional career in the New York-Penn League with the Geneva Redlegs in 1960.

Three years later, Rose was named NL Rookie of the Year.

He received his nickname “Charlie Hustle” from Whitey Ford after the Yankees pitcher took note of the way Rose sprinted to first base after drawing a walk in an exhibition game.

After a down year in 1964, Rose led the NL in hits in 1965, the first of 10 seasons with at least 200 hits and his .312 batting average was the first of nine consecutive seasons in which he averaged .300 or better.

He won back-to-back batting titles in 1968 and ’69, the second with a career-high .348.

In 1970, he led the league in hits, but is perhaps best remembered for the violent home plate collision he had with Cleveland catcher Ray Fosse during the All-Star Game in Cincinnati.

Trying to score from second on a 12th-inning single by Jim Hickman, Rose charged into Fosse, who didn’t have the ball, while scoring the winning run.

Fosse, then 29, suffered a separated shoulder that wasn’t diagnosed until the offseason and was never the same player again.

Ironically, Rose and Fosse had dinner the night before the game with Fosse’s Cleveland teammate Sam McDowell.

“I’ve never been so affected,” said Fosse, who died in 2021 and said Rose never apologized for pushing him over. “I know he didn’t mean it, but who knows, maybe he should have run around me.”

“I have to do everything I can to score there. My dad is at the game,” Rose said in 2017. “The reality is I missed the next three games. He didn’t miss any. And he played for another nine years. But I ruined his career? I tried not to hurt him. If I hadn’t knocked Ray Fosse on his ass, you wouldn’t have known who he was.

That was Rose, unapologetic to the end.

In his book “My Prison Without Bars,” Rose wrote that he told MLB commissioner Bud Selig, “Yes sir, I bet on baseball.”

When Selig asked Rose how often, Rose said, “Four or five times a week.” But I never bet against my own team, and I’ve never bet from the clubhouse.”

When Selig asked Rose why he had broken one of baseball’s most sacred rules, Rose said, “I didn’t think I would get caught.”

In the book, Rose questioned why his gambling problem was treated so severely, arguing that if he had been “an alcoholic or a drug addict, baseball would have suspended me for six weeks and paid for my rehab.”

Over time, and as Major League Baseball and other leagues partner with legalized gaming companies, some have come to see Rose’s side of things — to a point.

Many stadiums and arenas now have sportsbooks on site, including Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

“It has gone too far and it is hypocritical,” Hall of Famer Rod Carew said in a tweet. “How can you keep Pete Rose out and have a sportsbook in Reds stadium??”

“If they can embrace gambling to the level where they can use it in a stadium, they can forgive Pete and recognize him for the Great that he is. That’s the point,” Carew added in a separate tweet.

Rose was a constant presence in Cooperstown during Hall of Fame weekends, holding court at one of the many memorabilia shops along Main Street, signing all sorts of things – for a fee.

But he always left before the induction ceremony.

“I’m not here to steal anyone’s thunder,” he said,

After winning consecutive world championships with a Reds team that included future Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez, Rose compiled a 44-game hitting streak during the 1978 season, setting the NL single-season record by Wee Willie Keeler. in 1897.

Rose became a free agent after the 1979 season and signed a four-year, $3.2 million contract with the Phillies, making him for a time the highest-paid athlete in professional sports.

With future Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt a fixture at third base, Rose moved across the diamond to first base and helped Philadelphia to two World Series appearances in four years, winning the title in 1980.

After a subpar season in 1983, the Phillies released him and Rose signed a one-year contract with Montreal. It was with the Expos that Rose doubled former Phillies teammate Jerry Koosman for the 4,000th hit of his career.

Later that season, Rose was traded back to the Reds and was immediately appointed player-manager.

He would break Cobb’s record while with the Reds, dropping a single to left center field in a game against the Padres on September 11, 1985, for his 4,192nd hit.

Rose finished his career with 4,256 hits.

When Rose managed the Reds in 1988, he was suspended for 30 days and fined by Giamatti for physical contact with referee Dave Pallone. Rose claimed that Pallone contacted him first.

Rose also faced trouble off the field, spending time in prison in 1990 for filing false tax returns and in 2017 being accused of having a sexual relationship with a minor dating back to the 1970s.

That accusation cost him a job as an analyst at Fox Sports.

Rose, who was married twice, is survived by his partner Kiana Kim, his five children and two stepchildren.

In his 1989 report, special investigator John Dowd concluded that Rose, as a player-manager and as a manager, made 412 bets on baseball from April 8, 1985 to July 5, 1987, 52 of which were on the Reds winning.

Rose, who also wrote a 1989 book claiming he didn’t bet on baseball, wrote in his later book that he never allowed his betting “to influence my baseball decisions.”

“I’m sure I should act sad, sad, or guilty now that I’ve accepted that I did something wrong,” he wrote in the book’s epilogue. “But you see, I’m just not built that way.

“So let’s leave it be. … I’m sorry it happened, and I’m sorry to all the people, fans and family it hurt. Let’s move on. ”

But by early 2023, Rose had taken a more conciliatory approach.

“I’m the one who messed up and if (MLB) ever decides to give me a second chance, I would understand with open arms,” Rose told Forbes. “Baseball has made a decision about me. I could tell them I’m going to die tomorrow and they wouldn’t change their minds.

“I have been suspended for more than thirty years. That’s a long time to be suspended when you’re betting on your own team’s victory. And I was wrong. But that mistake was made. Time usually heals everything. It seems like that’s the case in baseball too, except when you’re talking about the Pete Rose case.”