Baseball’s Banished Man: “Hit King” Pete Rose Argues For Reinstatement In New HBO Documentary Series
deadline.comOn the baseball diamond, Pete Rose did everything head on – barreling into infielders to break up a double play, diving headfirst on steals, famously flattening catcher Ray Fosse to score the winning run in the 1970 All-Star Game.
He played straight up, hard-nosed baseball. No guile. In other aspects of his career, however, it was pure evasion. As the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, he secretly wagered on games, in clear violation of Major League Baseball policy.
When the scandal came to light, he issued denial after denial, and maintained that fiction for years, even after he had been banned from the game by baseball’s commissioner.
That lifetime banishment, rendered in 1989, left the man they call Charlie Hustle ineligible to enter the Hall of Fame, even though he’s baseball’s all-time hits leader with 4,256, a mark that may never be eclipsed.
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