Pete Rose: Iconic Baseball Player, Infamous Gambler, Posthumous Hall Of Famer?

Pete Rose lived long enough to see betting on sports legalized in 38 states and to see much of the stigma attached to engaging in sports wagering erased. But he did not live long enough to see his own attachments to sports betting destigmatized enough — or, at least, destigmatized enough in the eyes of the right people — to allow him induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Rose died in Las Vegas at age 83 on Monday still banned from baseball and ineligible for the Hall of Fame. What everyone had long assumed would be the case is now officially so: If the man known as “Charlie Hustle,” the 17-time All-Star who recorded more base hits than anyone in MLB history, is going to become a Hall of Famer, he will not be around the enjoy and celebrate the honor.

“The Hall of Fame is not for a bunch of altar boys,” Rose told me in 2021 when I had the opportunity to interview him for my podcast, Gamble On. “The Hall of Fame is for stats. That’s what the Hall of Fame is. In all sports. There’s not many altar boys up there in the Hall of Fame.

“I know all the guys that are in the Hall of Fame. And they’re all great players. But I’m sure some of them made mistakes. I mean, am I the only player in the history of baseball to bet on baseball? I’m not naïve enough to believe that. But that’s fine. That’s fine. I’m the only one that got caught.”

Lowlife or legend?

I grew up in Philadelphia, and “Pete Rose” was, as far as I knew, the most famous name in all of sports when I first started becoming obsessed with baseball in the early ‘80s. He was the example my dad — and everyone else’s dad — used of how you’re supposed to play the game. At a time when sports highlights weren’t readily available whenever you wanted to see them, Rose catching a foul ball that bounced out of teammate Bob Boone’s glove in the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 1980 World Series, to help American sports’ losing-est franchise finally claim its first championship in its 98th season of existence, was just about the only sports highlight I knew.

So it was an honor to interview him on the day before his 80th birthday, even if the man was viewed by many as a lowlife, a scumbag, a degenerate, etc. Maybe he was a lousy person; after speaking with him once, for about a half-hour, I don’t feel qualified to say one way or the other.

But he was an absolute legend of my youth. (And was, of course, 10 times as great a legend to kids in Cincinnati.) And he was a Hall of Fame baseball player, regardless of whether Major League Baseball ever gets over itself long enough to formally recognize it.

Rose was banned from the game, and rightfully so, in 1989, for betting on MLB games while he was the manager of the Reds. Rose lied and denied, his cleats digging his hole deeper, before finally admitting in 2004 that he wagered on Reds games. His gambling habit cost him all formal connection to the game he loved.

And even after the Supreme Court overturned PASPA in 2018 and the league that banned him began directly profiting off the public legally betting on sports, the museum in Cooperstown still had to pretend he never existed. (Well, that’s not true. It houses a bat he swung and a helmet and a pair of cleats he wore. So, the museum recognizes that this person who recorded 4,256 base hits existed. It just won’t entertain the idea of a plaque with his name and face on it.)

“Baseball never wanted to accept gambling,” Rose said in 2021, “but they’re in bed with the gambling world now, and it’s fine. I mean, it’s fine. I see no harm in it. If they’re going to do something — just like, I was watching Godfather last night, and, you know, the guy didn’t want to get into drugs, but his son told him, listen, all the other families are going to get into drugs and make millions of dollars, why don’t we get into it too?”

The ultimate ambassador, in his way

When my then-co-host John Brennan and I spoke to Rose, he was doing publicity for a new venture, making picks for a tout service. Yes, Rose was leaning into his infamy, making money off his connection to gambling as long as it was now legal to do so.

After a few softballs, we asked Rose the obligatory question about whether he regretted his actions as manager of the Reds.

“That’s been over 30 years,” he said. “And I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I didn’t make a mistake. I made a mistake betting on baseball. But, I needed something else when I was retired as an active player, and I believed in my players so much, I had so many good young players, so I just bet on ‘em every night to win. Because I thought they would win every night. And I was wrong. And I paid the price for it.”

Until the day he died, he continued paying that price. In 2020, I spoke to highly respected journalist Don Van Natta — who had recently interviewed Rose himself as part of an episode of an investigative series on ESPN — about whether widespread legalization of sports betting had improved Rose’s chances of getting into the Hall of Fame.

Van Natta responded: “Fay Vincent, the commissioner who was the deputy commissioner when the punishment was accepted by Pete Rose to be banned from baseball, said in our episode, and I thought very tellingly, that now that the culture has changed in America when it comes to gambling, he thinks it’s inevitable that Pete Rose will get into the Hall of Fame.”

The rules, however, currently state that ineligible players will remain ineligible when deceased. That rule would need to change before Rose can possibly be inducted.

In 2021, Rose was fully resigned to the reality that Hall of Fame induction during his lifetime had close to a zero percent chance of happening.

“I don’t want you guys to think that before I go to bed tonight, I’m going to dream and hope that I go to the Hall of Fame tomorrow,” he said. “I’m going to hope and dream that I wake up tomorrow! You know, that’s the stage of my life that I’m in.”

Whether officially allowed to represent MLB or not, Rose — who just last weekend was at an autograph show in Nashville with former Reds teammates Tony Perez, Dave Concepcion, and George Foster — lived out his later years proudly (if capitalistically) doing his best to represent the sport of baseball.

“You guys might not agree with this, but I believe I’m the biggest ambassador baseball has today,” he said on the podcast. “And I’m not even in the game. What do I do for a living? … I sign autographs seven days a week, five hours a day, and all I do is talk positive about the game of baseball. I don’t know any other player who does that.

“Even if I live to be 105, I’ll still be talking positively about the game of baseball.”