Pete Rose died yesterday. During his 24 seasons as a professional baseball player, Charlie Hustle won three World Series, made 17 All-Star Games and slid head first into second base approximately five million times.





Rose also had 4,256 career hits, the most in MLB history. To put that into context, that’s at least a thousand more than Barry Bonds, Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, Cal Ripken Jr., and a guy you may have heard of named Babe Ruth.



But Rose’s baseball career pales in comparison to his one true love: gambling.


In 1989, Rose received a lifetime ban from the MLB when it was discovered he had been betting on games while he was managing the Cincinnati Reds. He even bet on the Reds while managing them (and almost certainly while he was playing for them as well). Over the ensuing decades, Rose tried to campaign to get let back into baseball (mostly to become eligible for the Hall of Fame again), but he never gave up his love of gambling either, arguing that he “obviously made some mistakes … but one of the mistakes wasn’t betting on baseball.’’


That’s just one of his many great, totally defiant quotes about his ban and passion for betting on sports. Here are 10 others…


1) “I actually went to some Gamblers Anonymous classes, and I sat there for three or four of them, and I’m trying to figure out what I have in similarities with these other people, and I could never find anything. It just seems like it wasn’t the right place for me.”


2) “I bet on my team to win every night because I love my team; I believe in my team. I did everything in my power every night to win that game.”


3) “Some of my biggest friends are big-time horse owners.”


4) “I can’t remember, I wish I could remember the first time I bet on baseball.”


5) “When I was betting on baseball when I got suspended, I was betting illegally on baseball. I make no more illegal bets in my life. That’s why they have casinos.”


6) “If I had been busted for drugs instead of gambling, I’d still be managing the Reds and baseball would be paying for my rehab.”


7) “Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game’ is full of it! Winning makes all the difference in the world. Winning is fun. Losing is not. Losing sucks.”


8) “Unfortunately, gambling and winning don’t often go hand-in-hand.”


9) “I don’t like to be compared to Joe Jackson. because Joe Jackson, I think, took money to throw World Series games. Well, I know I bet on my own team to win. There’s pretty much a big difference there, but both of us were wrong.”


10) “Never bet on baseball.”