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Notable people · Sports

Pete Rose

Cincinnati-born Reds star who collected a record 4,256 major league hits, accepted permanent ineligibility in 1989 over betting on baseball, and was removed from the ineligible list after his death in 2025.

Born April 14, 1941, Cincinnati (Deaconess Hospital)
Died September 30, 2024, Las Vegas, NV

Pete Rose
Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born
April 14, 1941, Cincinnati (Deaconess Hospital) (Hamilton County) source
Died
September 30, 2024, Las Vegas, NV source
Buried
Cremated; ashes retained by his family (private burial) source
Also known as
Pete Rose, Charlie Hustle, The Hit King
Education
Western Hills High School, Cincinnati, OH, to 1960
Known as
Sports
Organizations
Cincinnati Reds

Life story

Pete Rose was born in Cincinnati in 1941 and attended Western Hills High School, where he played baseball and football. He signed with the Reds for $7,000 after graduating in 1960 and debuted on April 8, 1963, at Crosley Field.

He won Rookie of the Year in 1963 and the NL MVP in 1973, was a 17-time All-Star, and won three World Series. He had his 3,000th hit in 1978, followed by a 44-game hitting streak, and broke Ty Cobb's career hits record in Cincinnati on September 11, 1985.

He was banned from baseball in 1989 for gambling and reinstated after his death in 2024. He married twice and had five children. His record and ban remain the center of the argument over the Hall of Fame.

Ohio ties

  • Cincinnati (Anderson Ferry section) (1941-1960)
    birthplace and boyhood home Hamilton County · source
  • Boldface Park, Sedamsville, Cincinnati (1940s-1950s)
    boyhood ballfield where he learned the game Hamilton County · source
  • Western Hills High School, Cincinnati (to 1960)
    football and baseball player; graduated 1960 Hamilton County · source
  • Dayton (1960)
    played in the Dayton Amateur League for a team sponsored by Frisch's Big Boy of Lebanon Montgomery County · source
  • Cincinnati (1963-1978, 1984-1989)
    Reds player, player-manager and manager Hamilton County · source
  • Cincinnati (Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas) (1989)
    filed suit against Commissioner Giamatti; the case was moved to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio Hamilton County · source
  • Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati (2016-2024)
    Reds Hall of Fame induction, number retirement, statue and public visitation after his death Hamilton County · source

Timeline

  1. 1941 Born April 14 at Deaconess Hospital in Cincinnati, third of four children of Harry and LaVerne Rose. source
  2. 1960 Graduated from Western Hills High School and signed with the Reds for $7,000, with a $5,000 bonus if he reached the majors. source
  3. 1963 Started at second base for the Reds on Opening Day and was named National League Rookie of the Year. source
  4. 1970 Scored the winning run of the All-Star Game at Cincinnati's new Riverfront Stadium by running over catcher Ray Fosse in the 12th inning. source
  5. 1973 Won the National League Most Valuable Player Award. source
  6. 1978 Got his 3,000th hit at Riverfront Stadium on May 5 and hit in 44 straight games from June 14 to August 1, tying the NL record. source
  7. 1984 Traded back to the Reds by Montreal on August 15 and named player-manager. source
  8. 1985 Broke Ty Cobb's career hits record with hit 4,192, a single off San Diego's Eric Show at Riverfront Stadium on September 11. source
  9. 1985 Cincinnati renamed Second Street as Pete Rose Way on September 12, the day after the record hit. source
  10. 1986 Took his last at-bat on August 17, finishing with 4,256 hits. source
  11. 1989 Special counsel John Dowd delivered his report to Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti on May 9, documenting bets on baseball including on Reds games. source
  12. 1989 Signed an agreement on August 23 accepting a place on the permanently ineligible list; Giamatti announced it the next day. source
  13. 1990 Pleaded guilty on April 20 to two counts of filing false income tax returns and served five months at the federal prison camp in Marion, Illinois, until January 1991. source
  14. 1991 The Hall of Fame voted on February 4 to bar anyone on the permanently ineligible list from election. source
  15. 2004 Admitted in his book My Prison Without Bars that he had bet on baseball and on the Reds while managing them. source
  16. 2015 Commissioner Rob Manfred denied his application for reinstatement on December 14. source
  17. 2016 Inducted into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame on June 25; the Reds retired his No. 14 the next day. source
  18. 2017 Tom Tsuchiya's bronze of his headfirst slide was unveiled on Crosley Terrace at Great American Ball Park on June 17. source
  19. 2024 Died September 30 at his home in Las Vegas; the Reds hosted a public visitation at Great American Ball Park on November 10. source
  20. 2025 Manfred ruled on May 13 that permanent ineligibility ends at death and removed Rose from the list, responding to a January 8 request from his family's lawyer. source
  21. 2025 The Hall of Fame said Rose could now be considered by the Classic Baseball Era Committee, which next meets in December 2027. source

What Pete is known for

  • All-time MLB hits leader (4,256); record-breaking hit 11 Sep 1985
  • 44-game hitting streak, third-longest in MLB history
  • Permanently banned Aug 1989; reinstated May 13, 2025 after death
  • 4,256 career hits
  • 44-game hitting streak (1978)

Stories

The kid from Anderson Ferry

Rose's father, Harry, worked more than 40 years at Fifth Third Bank and played semipro baseball, softball and football and boxed into his 40s. He let eight-year-old Pete join an amateur team only if he learned to switch-hit. Rose was held back a grade at Western Hills High School after his father objected to summer school cutting into summer baseball, and the extra year cost him his senior baseball eligibility. He played semipro ball instead, including in the Dayton Amateur League, where he hit .626 for a team sponsored by Frisch's Big Boy of Lebanon. His uncle Buddy Bloebaum, a Reds bird-dog scout, pushed the club to sign him, and on graduation day in 1960 the Reds offered $7,000.

Source

Hit 4,192 and the street renamed overnight

On September 11, 1985, at Riverfront Stadium, Rose looped a single to left off San Diego's Eric Show to pass Ty Cobb, then tearfully hugged his 15-year-old son near first base. The next day Cincinnati renamed Second Street, which runs past the riverfront stadiums, as Pete Rose Way. Naming a street for a living person broke the usual practice of waiting at least a year after death, and doctors who had sought a landmark for Albert Sabin, the Cincinnati developer of the oral polio vaccine, were upset. A rose garden east of the Reds Hall of Fame now marks where the record hit landed in the old stadium.

Source

The case that started in Hamilton County

After Sports Illustrated reported the betting allegations in March 1989, Giamatti hired lawyer John Dowd, whose report of May 9 described bets on 52 Reds games in 1987. Rose refused to attend a hearing and sued Giamatti in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas, which issued a temporary restraining order. Giamatti moved the case to federal court in the Southern District of Ohio, and the two sides settled. In the August 23 agreement Rose neither admitted nor denied betting on baseball but accepted that the commissioner had a factual basis for the penalty. Giamatti told reporters the next day that he had concluded Rose bet on baseball, and he died of a heart attack eight days later.

Source

Reinstated after death

On January 8, 2025, the Rose family's lawyer, Jeffrey Lenkov, asked Commissioner Manfred to take Rose off the permanently ineligible list. In a three-page letter dated May 13, Manfred wrote that the phrase lifetime ban had never been accurate, because the 1989 agreement tracked Rule 21's term permanently ineligible. He reasoned that the rule exists to protect the game and deter others, and that a person who has died cannot threaten the game's integrity, so permanent ineligibility ends at death. The ruling covered 17 deceased people, including Shoeless Joe Jackson. President Trump had said in early 2025 that he would pardon Rose, and Manfred said they had discussed Rose in April. The Hall of Fame then said Rose could be considered by its Classic Baseball Era Committee in December 2027.

Source

Honors and things named for them

  • NL MVP 1973
  • NL Rookie of the Year 1963
  • 17-time All-Star
  • 3 World Series titles
  • 2 Gold Gloves

Named for Pete Rose

  • Pete Rose Way (formerly Second Street) (Cincinnati, Hamilton County) source
  • Boldface Park honorary renaming for Pete Rose (approved by Cincinnati City Council after his death) (Cincinnati (Sedamsville), Hamilton County) source

Family

  • wife: Karolyn Englehardt (m. 1964-1980)
  • wife: Carol Woliung (m. 1984-2011)
  • son: Pete Rose Jr.

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

12345

Ohio places

Where Pete Rose was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Pete Rose, and what the record shows.

Often said Baseball formally found Rose guilty and gave him a lifetime ban.

The record The 1989 agreement made no formal finding; Rose neither admitted nor denied betting on baseball but accepted that the commissioner had a factual basis for the penalty. Giamatti said only at his press conference that he had concluded Rose bet on baseball. In 2025 Manfred wrote that lifetime ban was never accurate: Rose was placed on the permanently ineligible list under Rule 21. source

Often said The 1989 ban itself is what kept Rose out of the Hall of Fame.

The record The 1989 agreement said nothing about the Hall of Fame, and Giamatti said Hall voting was for the writers. The bar came from the Hall of Fame's own February 4, 1991 rule excluding anyone on the permanently ineligible list. Manfred said in 2015 that the commissioner has no authority over Hall eligibility. source

Often said The 2025 reinstatement put Rose in the Hall of Fame.

The record It only made him eligible for consideration. The Hall's Historical Overview Committee must first put him on an eight-name Classic Baseball Era ballot, and that committee does not meet until December 2027. source

Often said Rose bet on baseball only as a manager, in 1987.

The record In 2015 Manfred cited a notebook of 1986 bets, made while Rose was the Reds' player-manager, and the Dowd Report's evidence of betting in 1985 and 1986, contradicting Rose's account. source

  • Disputed: His ban from baseball over gambling is documented, but whether he belongs in the Hall of Fame remains unsettled.

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

  • Pete Rose
    Public domain
  • Pete Rose
    Public domain
  • Pete Rose in 1963
    Pete Rose in 1963
    Public domain
  • Professional baseball player Pete Rose
    Professional baseball player Pete Rose
    Public domain
  • Pete Rose Statue by Tom Tsuchiya
    Pete Rose Statue by Tom Tsuchiya
    CC0
  • Pete Rose in 1963
    Pete Rose in 1963
    Public domain
  • Illustration of Pete Rose's Retired Reds Number
    Illustration of Pete Rose's Retired Reds Number
    CC0
  • Getting to meet Pete Rose.
    Getting to meet Pete Rose.
    Rob Bixby from Jacksonville, FL, USA / CC BY 2.0
  • Mr. Hustle, um, hustling
    Mr. Hustle, um, hustling
    Mr. Littlehand / CC BY 2.0
  • Pete Rose
    Pete Rose
    Paula R. Lively from Zanesville, United States / CC BY 2.0
  • Pete Rose at GalaxyCon Columbus in 2023
    Pete Rose at GalaxyCon Columbus in 2023
    Super Festivals from Ft. Lauderdale, USA / CC BY 2.0
  • Pete Rose at GalaxyCon Columbus in 2023
    Pete Rose at GalaxyCon Columbus in 2023
    Super Festivals from Ft. Lauderdale, USA / CC BY 2.0

Further reading

Sources

Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.

Every link goes to the original source. Profile researched 2026-10-15.

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