Image Credit: Tenaciousme - Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
The Cincinnati Reds paid tribute to their most prolific player in team history on June 17th, 2017 when they unveiled a statue of Pete Rose outside of Great American Ballpark. The statue was designed by Tom Tsuchiya, an artist in the Cincinnati area. The statue depicts Rose sliding head first into a base and symbolizes the aggressiveness and hustle he displayed as a baseball player.
The ceremony was attended by former members of the Big Red Machine which is widely considered to be one of the best teams in Major League Baseball history. The first 30,000 fans that attended the June 17th game vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers also received a commemorative figurine of the Pete Rose statue. Last season, the Cincinnati Reds organization retired Pete’s number (8) and inducted Pete into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame during the series vs. the San Diego Padres. It’s up in the air whether Pete will ever be inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame after admittedly gambling on baseball as a manager. In 1989, Rose and Major League Baseball agreed to a lifetime ban; the league has wanted little to do with him since.
The Pete Rose statue can be found on the Crosley Terrace outside of the main entrance of Great American Ballpark. The statue is the fourth statue of a member of the Big Red Machine; the Cincinnati Reds already had pre-existing statues of Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez. There are additional statues outside of the ballpark of former Cincinnati Reds greats Frank Robinson, Joe Nuxhall, Ted Kluszewski and Ernie Lombardi. Pete Rose played 24 seasons in Major League Baseball and was a member of the Cincinnati Reds from 1963 to 1978. Rose also spent time as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies and Montreal Expos.
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