[-STAT-]

The game of baseball truly lost one of the greats, a true giant of the game. I never had the privilege of seeing him play in person, but he was my dad's all-time favorite player, so I always heard about him and seen clips and highlights in my life. He played every single game 110%, first spring training game like it was game 7 of the World Series.

He lived a full life, always in the spotlight and loved every second of it.

I read an article on him yesterday, what I found interesting was, is that before Pete Rose, if a player was permanently banned from baseball, they would still be eligible for the Hall of Fame, having been retired for 5 years. Rose was about to reach that 5-year mark, and all of a sudden, the Hall of Fame made the change that if you're banned from baseball, you're banned from being eligible or making the Hall of Fame. He committed one of the cardinal sins of the sport and bet on it, but here we are years later and what are all the major sports putting all their chips on the table with (no pun)? Sports gambling, draft kings, fan duel etc. Also looking at the steroid era, those players who openly admitted to taking steroids, blatantly cheated to gain a competitive advantage in the game (a lot of them clearly did), and some of the bigger names from that era have still been associated with baseball, Mcgwire Bonds to name a few, even though their careers are tarnished, and still haven't gotten into the Hall of Fame. If you ask me, what they done is much worse, damaging the integrity of the game. Rose bet on the Reds, but he never bet on them to lose! That would be a different story if he did.

Most people in this area are and have been Reds fan, so we all know who Pete Rose is and how much he meant to the city, the franchise and to the game of baseball. Like another article I seen said, he lived a perfectly imperfect life.

RIP to the Hit King Pete Rose.