Within the past few days, 81-year-old Pete Rose wrote this letter to Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred:
I became a baseball fan in 1963 when I was nine years old (FYI: I will be 69 next week!). I grew up near Dayton, Ohio (about 50 miles North of Cincinnati), and my father was a Cincinnati Reds fan. Therefore, I went to quite a few Reds games every year. “Charlie Hustle” (aka Pete Rose) was a staple of my baseball life. But I was not a fan! I thought he was a “hot dog.” I did not like Pete Rose in the least when I lived in Ohio.