Pete Rose used to be dismissive Sunday when requested about an accusation that he had intercourse with a woman beneath 16 within the Seventies.
Rose, who used to be attending a birthday celebration in Philadelphia for the 1980 World-Series-winning Phillies staff, instructed a feminine reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer: “No, I’m not here to talk about that. Sorry about that. It was 55 years ago, babe.”
Asked later by way of every other reporter, he mentioned: “I’m going to tell you one more time. I’m here for the Philly fans. I’m here for my teammates. I’m here for the Phillies organization. And who cares what happened 50 years ago? You weren’t even born. So you shouldn’t be talking about it, because you weren’t born.”
Rose used to be given a life-time ban from baseball in 1989 for making a bet on video games, however used to be given particular permission by way of the commissioner’s workplace to look on the Phillies match. He has been barred from attention for the Hall of Fame as a result of he’s on baseball’s ineligible record.
Major League Baseball and the Phillies didn’t straight away go back a request for touch upon Monday about Rose’s remarks.
The accusation of underage intercourse in opposition to Rose, 81, got here out in a 2017 defamation lawsuit he filed in opposition to John Dowd, who had led the investigation into Rose’s playing. It stemmed from remarks Dowd made on a radio program claiming that Rose had intercourse with “12- to 14-year-old girls.”
In testimony from that case in 2017, an unidentified lady mentioned she had intercourse with Rose when she used to be beneath 16. Rose answered that he believed she used to be 16, the age of consent in Ohio. Rose has now not confronted any fees of underage intercourse; the statute of boundaries has expired.
Those revelations led the Phillies to cancel a scheduled look by way of Rose on the park in 2017.
This time round, Rose used to be met by way of most commonly cheers on the rite at Citizens Bank Park.
Over a protracted occupation, Rose had extra hits than another participant in main league historical past, even supposing he benefited a great deal from collecting extra at-bats than another participant as neatly. His occupation batting moderate ranks 179th. He had his percentage of doubles and walks, however slap-hit singles had been his uniqueness.
He received repute, and acclaim, all over his occupation for his over-the-top hustle, together with racing to first base after a stroll and sprinting, somewhat than trotting, off and on the sphere after each half-inning.
There is a consensus that had Rose now not been curious about making a bet on baseball, leading to his ban from the sport, he would have conveniently been elected to the Hall of Fame.
After a really perfect occupation with the Cincinnati Reds, he went to the Phillies as a loose agent in 1979 and is given a substantial amount of credit score for his or her 1980 World Series win, the primary of their historical past. That staff additionally incorporated 3rd baseman Mike Schmidt, who received the N.L.’s Most Valuable Player Award that season, and Steve Carlton, who received that yr’s N.L. Cy Young Award.
“Pete Rose is right about one thing he said today,” the Association for Women in Sports Media said in a statement. “It’s been 55 years since the reported inappropriate relationships, and times have changed. It’s no longer acceptable to call a reporter ‘babe.’”
After the preliminary inquiry, Alex Coffey, the reporter whom Rose had known as “babe,” tweeted that Rose “asked if he’d offended me, and said, ‘will you forgive me if I sign 1,000 baseballs for you’ before saying “sorry.”
