Pete Rose

Pete Rose became a baseball legend in his own time, an 18-time All-Star at five different positions and leader of two-championship dynasty. The Ohio native broke into baseball with the hometown Cincinnati Reds in 1963 and two years later became the league's top hitter in the first of nine consecutive seasons batting above .300. Rose joined future Hall-of-Famers Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Pérez as the core of a team that would become a Major League Baseball powerhouse through much of the 1970s, winning the World Series twice. Traded to Philadelphia, he won another ring with the Phillies in 1980. Rose returned to Cincinnati as player-manager in 1984 and while there, broke Ty Cobb's all-time hitting record. He hung up his bat in 1986 but remained at the Reds' helm until 1989, when his tenure endedover revelations that he had gambled on baseball games while both player and manager. MLB banned Rose from baseball and the Baseball Hall of Fame ruled him ineligible from its honors in 1991. Rose burnished his image over the years, notably with a 2004 memoir, in which he admitted to betting on Reds games, and with a TLC reality show pegged to his impeding nuptials. Still the MLB record holder in base hits (4,256) and games played (3,562), Rose's remained one of the most significant figures in American sports history.