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The baseball community is in mourning for one of its own. The Clark County Office of the Coroner confirmed to NBC News that legendary baseball player Pete Rose passed away on September 30. He was eighty-three.
The cause of death is still unknown.
Rose's agent, Ryan Fiterman, told TMZ that Rose passed away in his Las Vegas home, noting that Rose's "family is asking for privacy at this time."
Rose, who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, rose to prominence in Major League Baseball between 1963 and 1986, mostly with the Cincinnati Reds. Because of his unwavering willingness to give it his all during games, he was known by the nickname "Charlie Hustle" during his tenure in the league.
During his career, Rose was the winner of three World Series: in 1980 with the Philadelphia Phillies, in 1975 and 1976 with the Reds. In addition, he won seventeen All-Star games and was named the MVP of the 1975 World Series. With 4,256 hits in 24 seasons, he remains the MLB's all-time hits leader to this day.
He was a player-manager for his final two seasons with the Reds (1984–1986), and he managed the team until his retirement from baseball in 1989.
However, the end of Rose's career was marked with controversy when it was found that he had bet on baseball games during his time as both a player and manager for the Reds. He was subsequently banned from baseball by MLB commissioner Bart Giamatti in 1989, and in 1991 the Baseball Hall of Fame voted to ban any players on the "permanently ineligible list" from induction.
Rose eventually acknowledged Rose-coloredbling in his 2004 autobiography, My Prison Without Bars, despite initially refuting the claims at the time of his suspension.
"I'm sure that I'm supposed to act all sorry or sad or guilty," he wrote, as reported by USA Today, "now that I've accepted that I've done something wrong."
"But as you can see, I'm not built that way," he went on. Indeed, there is most likely a genuine feeling concealed deep within. And if I allowed that aspect of myself to surface, perhaps I would be a better person. It just doesn't show up very often, though. Let's just leave it at that. I apologize for what happened and for the hurt it caused to all of the fans and family. Now let's go on."
Rose is survived by his children Fawn, Pete Rose Jr. with his first wife Karolyn Englehardt, and Tyler and Cara with ex-Clara J. Woliung.
