In an interview with Jim Gray for his Fox News special, 'Talking to GOATs with Jim Gray,' former Cincinnati Reds Pete Rose called betting on baseball - which Rose said he now does legally at casinos - was the only mistake he's ever made, and suggested as he has before that he doesn't think he'll be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame as long as he's alive.
'When I was betting on baseball when I got suspended, I was betting illegally on baseball. I make no more illegal bets in my life. That's why they have casinos,' Rose told Gray.
'I screwed up,' Rose added. 'I should have never (bet on baseball). That's the only mistake I've ever made in my life to be honest with you. And that's the biggest mistake. I would love to go to the Hall of Fame. Any player would. But as long as this heart is beating, I'm not going to go to the Hall of Fame.'
Pete Rose Gambling 1989
In June, Rose told Joe, Lo & Dibs on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco that the pandemic was making it harder for someone to beat his all-time hits record and insisted that nobody will every pass him. In the same interview, Rose suggested that 'greenies' - the amphetamines many players took during his playing career - did not have anywhere close to the impact that steroids did more recently.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Pete Rose: Betting on baseball was 'the only mistake I've ever made in my life'
Gambling cost Pete Rose a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and ruined his personal reputation. Pete Rose, seen here during his introduction to the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame in 2016. Among the candid remarks made by Hit King and former Cincinnati Reds great Pete Rose during an interview on the No Filter Sports podcast was his declaration that his lifetime ban from baseball for.
Faces Charges Of Betting On Baseball
The gambling scandal that was to forever mar Rose's baseball career began to take shape in 1984, when the Cincinnati hitter started to spend an increasing amount of time with a group of men he'd met at a gym in Cincinnati. This group introduced Rose to some bookmakers, and over time he allegedly developed a gambling habit that ultimately reached $15,000 a day and included bets on baseball, including games played by his own team. After reports of Rose's alleged gambling activities reached the offices of Major League Baseball, an investigation into the charges was launched early in 1989. Finally, after the probe was concluded, Commissioner Giamatti on August 24, 1989, permanently banned Rose from major league baseball. A five-page document signed by both Giamatti and Rose included no formal findings, but Giamatti said he considered Rose's acceptance of the ban to be a no-contest plea to the charges.
Whether Major League Baseball ever relents and eases its sanctions against Rose is anybody's guess. Early in 2003, Commisioner of Baseball Bud Selig was considering reinstating Rose, if the former player admitted to gambling on his own team, something Rose had always refused to admit to. Reportedly, Rose was willing to 'come clean' if it meant possible reinstatement. In the meantime, the ban and the reasons for its imposition have tainted one of the most brilliant careers in baseball history and in the process given the 'Charlie Hustle' nickname an alternate and less than wholesome alternate meaning.
However, nothing in the gambling allegations against Rose can alter the monumental performance of Charlie Hustle on the ball field. Nearly two decades after he set the new hitting record, Rose's career 4,256 hits stands as a mark for other ambitious batters to shoot for. And even when Rose's record falls, as eventually it almost certainly will, he will be remembered as one of baseball's greats, whether or not he is ever enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Pete Rose Gambling Consequences
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