Major League Baseball legend Pete Rose has died, ABC News reported. He was 83.
[ Pete Rose to attend Phillies’ celebration of 1980 World Series champions ]
While there aren’t a lot of details yet about the manner in which he died, Rose was found by a family member, law enforcement told ABC News.
The medical examiner told ABC News that Rose was not under the care of a doctor when he died, and the scene is being examined.
The coroner will investigate to determine the cause and manner of death.
Rose brought a workmanlike attitude to America’s pastime and won innumerable fans for his hustle on the field. By the end of his 24-year career, 19 of which were with the Cincinnati Reds, he held the record for most career hits, as well as games played, plate appearances and at-bats. He was also a 16-time All-Star, the 1973 NL MVP and 1963 Rookie of the Year.
He also won three World Series -- two with Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” clubs in 1975 and 1976, and a third with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980.
But Rose will always be remembered as much for being banned for life from MLB in 1989 over gambling on games while he was managing the Reds.
With Rose under suspicion, new MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti commissioned an investigation led by John Dowd, a lawyer with the Department of Justice, in April 1989. By June, the damning report was released, documenting at least 52 bets on Reds games in 1987, his first season as solely a manager after serving as player/manager for three seasons. The bets totaled thousands of dollars per day, according to the Dowd Report.Faced with few options, Rose voluntarily accepted placement on baseball’s ineligible list in August 1989. Despite this, Rose continued to deny he ever gambled on his own team for over a decade.
He finally admitted to gambling on Reds games in his 2004 autobiography, “My Prison Without Bars.” In an interview on ABC News promoting the book, he came clean for the first time as well.
“I bet on baseball in 1987 and 1988,” he told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an exclusive interview that aired Jan. 8, 2004, on “Primetime Thursday.” “That was my mistake, not coming clean a lot earlier.”