Rose: MLB, Hall are waiting for me to die

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July 21, 2012

Rose: MLB, Hall are waiting for me to die

By JOE MAHONEY Staff Writer The Daily Star Sat Jul 21, 2012, 03:30 AM EDT

COOPERSTOWN -- Baseball legend Pete Rose, dogged by his past involvement with sports gambling, said Friday he expects he will be considered for admission into the National Baseball Hall of Fame once he dies.

Tapping his chest near his heart, Rose, during a discussion about his current ineligibility for the Hall of Fame, stated: "What it's going to take to get over this is for this heart to stop beating."

The comment by Major League Baseball's all-time leading hitter alluding to death came during an otherwise light-hearted conversation while he was having breakfast at T.J's restaurant on Main Street.

He was accompanied by his fiancee, former Playboy model Kiana Kim; her two children; Ted Hargrove, who owns the restaurant; and Rose's host in Cooperstown, Andrew Vilacky, the operator of Safe at Home, a sports collectible shop where Rose would later sign baseballs, photographs and shirts.

The breakfast gathering was being filmed by a crew from TLC, a cable network that has ordered five episodes of a reality show focusing on Rose's relationship with Kim and her children.

After Rose commented that his death would pave the way for his admission to the Hall of Fame, Hargrove chimed in: "Certainly, nobody wants that to happen."

With a summer-weight fedora tilted on his head, Rose, 71, told The Daily Star that his involvement in the reality TV show "is going to be a lot of fun."

Nodding toward Kim and her two children, he laughed and said: "I guess I'm a good prop for them. We've got an interesting life."

Referring to Kim, he said: "She certainly has the face for a reality show. I don't."

Discussing this weekend's Hall of Fame induction of former Cincinnati Reds player Barry Larkin and the late Ron Santo of the Chicago Cubs, Rose, who had been Larkin's manager in Cincinnati, said: "We're just glad to be a small part of what's going on. It's more special to me this year because Barry is going in. He is my first player going in."

In the breakfast discussion, Hargrove argued that Rose could have been in the Hall of Fame by now had late Major League Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti not pressured Rose to place himself on baseball's permanent ineligibility list in 1989 after gambling allegations surfaced.

However, Rose defended Giamatti and refused to criticize him. "He had to do what he had to do," he said. "He was a fair man."

Rose also said: "I seriously believe that if Bart hadn't died, he would have given me a second chance."

An investigation by Major League Baseball officials uncovered no evidence that Rose ever bet against the Reds.

In 1997, Rose applied for reinstatement to baseball but commissioner Bud Selig has not acted on the application.

Rose's fiancee said of the inaction on the application: "They've never given him a yes or a no."

Hargrove also stressed there was no evidence that Rose ever gambled on baseball while he was a player.

Rose agreed, saying, "All my mistakes were made when I was a manager."