Pete Rose Dismisses Questions About Sexual Misconduct

He gained fame, and acclaim, during his career for his over-the-top hustle, including racing to first base after a walk and sprinting, rather than trotting, on and off the field after every half-inning.

There is a consensus that had Rose not been involved in betting on baseball, resulting in his ban from the game, he would have comfortably been elected to the Hall of Fame.

After a great career with the Cincinnati Reds, he went to the Phillies as a free agent in 1979 and is given a great deal of credit for their 1980 World Series win, the first in their history. That team also included third baseman Mike Schmidt, who won the N.L.’s Most Valuable Player Award that season, and Steve Carlton, who won that year’s N.L. Cy Young Award.

“Pete Rose is right about one thing he said today,” the Association for Women in Sports Media said in a statement. “It’s been 55 years since the reported inappropriate relationships, and times have changed. It’s no longer acceptable to call a reporter ‘babe.’”

After the initial inquiry, Alex Coffey, the reporter whom Rose had referred to as “babe,” tweeted that Rose “asked if he’d offended me, and said, ‘will you forgive me if I sign 1,000 baseballs for you’ before saying “sorry.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/sports/baseball/pete-rose-phillies.html