Pete Rose: 1941-2024, a Hall of Famer for sure – if it evens matters now

By Rory Ryan
The Highland County Press 

Cincinnati Reds legend and Major League Baseball Hit King Peter Edward Rose is dead.

He was 83.

He belongs in Cooperstown. Sadly, he will not live to see his induction into the Hal of Fame.

For those of us who grew up playing baseball in the late 1960s and early 1970s, most of us wanted to emulate Pete's hustle. We ran to first base on ball four. We stretched a single into a double. We slid into bases head first. We barreled into catchers. (Don't do it to Donnie Barrera as I did around 1974. Ouch.)

We wanted to be Pete Rose.

Pete personified hustle in the game of baseball. He laughed that New York Yankees' legends Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford once called him Charlie Hustle. The name stuck. For decades.

Thanks to my second cousin Jeff McCoy, who recently passed away, I was able to meet Pete at Hillsboro High School after a charity basketball game when I was 9 or 10. Years later, I met Pete again.

Yes, he had his faults, as many of us do. But give me eight position players with the energy and commitment of Pete Rose and Bob Gibson or Jim Merritt on the mound, and I'll take my chances.

Pete was a 17-time All-Star. He won three World Series championships, was named National League and World Series MVP, and received two Gold Glove Awards. His No. 14 is retired in Cincinnati and he is in the Reds Hall of Fame.

He ought to be in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. 

The "hit king" was banned from baseball – making him permanently ineligible for the Hall of Fame – in 1989 after accusations that he gambled on baseball games while he played and managed the Reds. He had applied for reinstatement several times, but commissioners rejected his requests.

Pete's 4,256 career hits are the all-time Major League Baseball record. Still, after decades of his banishment from the game, he is exiled from the Hall of Fame.

Pete's dead now. Maybe the old-timers committee can right this wrong and put Pete in the Hall of Fame.

Yes, he had his off-the-field issues. But given professional sports leagues' association with gamblers in 2024, why deny Pete his due?

He spent 24 years in Major League Baseball, and he retired as the league’s all-time hits leader, among other things. He got his start with the Reds in 1963, and he spent the first 16 seasons of his career with the organization. He won a pair of World Series titles in 1975 and 1976, which marked the club’s first championships in 35 years. Pete then spent a five-year run with the Philadelphia Phillies, and he won his third World Series title there in 1980. He then spent half of a season with the Montreal Expos in 1984 before returning to Cincinnati that year to wrap up his playing career.

Pete finished with 4,256 hits, which is the most in MLB history. He’s one of just two players, along with Ty Cobb, to even surpass the 4,000-hits mark. 

Pete also holds MLB records for games played (3,562), plate appearances (15,890) and at-bats (14,053). He won three batting titles and two Gold Glove awards throughout his career, and he picked up 17 All-Star nods. He was the league’s MVP in 1973, when he held a .338 batting average with 230 hits, five home runs and 64 RBI.

He belongs in the Hall of Fame, and always has.

But now, induction is too little, too late. Godspeed, Peter Edward Rose. You were good.

• Note: For a great column on Pete Rose, I recommend reading Gene McLean at https://thepressboxlts.com/pete-rose-a-hall-of-fame-friend-who-slid-hea…

Rory Ryan is publisher of The Highland County Press.