Bat Used for Pete Rose's Final Hit Auctioned Off
Pete Rose had 4,256 hits in his 24 seasons in Major League Baseball. Today, the bat that delivered his final hit in 1986 was auctioned off for $158,776, well below what many people were anticipating it to be. Rose stands alone atop the record books as the all-time hits leader and has been there since he surpassed Ty Cobb on September 11th, 1985 when he was in role of player-manager for the Cincinnati Reds. Rose, whose career batting average was .303, came under a great deal of scrutiny when he had admitted in 2004 that after 14 years a denying it, he had indeed bet on baseball games. He admitted that while managing the Reds he bet on the team to win every night and that he had been dealing with an addiction to gambling for many years. In 1989 Rose was given a lifetime ban from baseball and as a result cannot be voted into the baseball hall of fame despite having one of the best careers in the history of the game.
