Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s hit king who then became a pariah for gambling on the game, has died at the age of 83, the medical examiner in Clark County, Nevada, confirmed to ABC News on Monday.
Rose was found at his home by a family member, according to the medical examiner. There were no signs of foul play. The coroner will investigate to determine cause and manner of death. The medical examiner told ABC News that Rose was not under the care of a doctor when he died, and the scene is being examined.
By the end of his 24-year career, 19 of which were with the Cincinnati Reds, Rose held the record for most career hits, as well as games played, plate appearances and at-bats. He was also a 17-time All-Star, the 1973 NL MVP and 1963 Rookie of the Year.
He also won three World Series — two with Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” clubs in 1975 and 1976, and a third with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980.
But Rose will always be remembered as much for being banned for life from MLB in 1989 over gambling on games while he was managing the Reds.
With Rose under suspicion, new MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti commissioned an investigation led by John Dowd, a lawyer with the Department of Justice, in April 1989. By June, the damning report was released, documenting at least 52 bets on Reds games in 1987. The bets totaled thousands of dollars per day, according to the Dowd Report.
Faced with few options, Rose voluntarily accepted placement on baseball’s ineligible list in August 1989. Despite this, Rose continued to deny he ever gambled on his own team, until he admitted it in his 2004 autobiography My Prison Without Bars.
Two years after Rose was banned for life, the Baseball Hall of Fame ruled no one on the ineligible list would be allowed into the institution. The controversy over Rose’s suspension and ban from the Hall of Fame has taken on a life of its own, becoming a subject sports fans often debate more than his legendary on-field exploits.
Rose petitioned the league to be removed from the list in 1992, 1998, 2003, 2015 and 2022 — but either was rejected or received no response each time.
Rose never strayed far from baseball, despite being on the sport’s ineligible list. His No. 14 was retired by the Reds and appeared on the sport’s All-Century Team, as voted by fans, in 1999. The team was announced at that year’s All-Star Game in Boston and Rose received a standing ovation.
