Pete Rose, MLB’s all-time hits leader who was banned for life, dies at 83

Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hits leader who was banned from the sport after gambling on his own team as a player and manager, died Monday. He was 83.

Rose’s death was confirmed by the Clark County, Nevada, medical examiner’s office.

Rose played 24 seasons in the major leagues, the last three of which were as a player-manager. He most famously played for the Cincinnati Reds from 1963-78, and again from 1984-86. Rose was placed on MLB’s ineligible list in August 1989 after an investigation revealed he gambled on baseball — including on the Reds’ own games — when he was manager.

He did not admit to betting on baseball until 2004, when he wrote in his autobiography that he bet both as a player and manager, but never against his own team.

Rose was a 17-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion who won the National League MVP award in 1973. He retired from playing after the 1986 season with 4,256 hits, a record that stands to this day.

In the years following his ban from baseball, Rose applied several times for reinstatement but was never admitted. The MLB Hall of Fame also began excluding players on the permanently ineligible list from being inducted in 1991, preventing Rose from earning the sport’s highest honor.