On September 11, 1985, with a sell-out crowd of 52,000 fans on hand at = Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium and millions of others watching on = television, Pete Rose collected hit number 4,192 of his career and = passed Ty Cobb as the all-time career hits leader. As he reached first = base, thousands of cameras flashed, his teammates mobbed him, fireworks = exploded and the crowd overwhelmed him with a seven-minute standing = ovation. Rose was on top of the world. Less than four years later, he = would be banned for life from baseball for allegedly betting on major = league games, roundly criticized in the press by both fans and fellow = players, and then convicted for tax evasion.
In 2003, fourteen years after he was made ineligible for the Hall of = Fame, Commissioner Bud Selig took up Rose's application for = reinstatement, igniting once again an intense debate about his legacy = and baseball's long-standing zero-tolerance policy on gambling. This = book gathers the available facts of Rose's life and career, as well as = the scandals he was embroiled in, leaving the reader a more informed = participant in the ongoing discussion.