Pete Rose is coming to Milwaukee. And he’s finally going to be a Hall of Famer.
Major League Baseball’s all-time hits king, who is banned from the game for life and permanently ineligible for Cooperstown, will be inducted into the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame’s inaugural class during a live event at The Pabst Theater on April 23.
Rose’s bobblehead becomes the first to be enshrined, which, according to a release from the Pabst, prompted the former player to say, "Being the only of anything is a big deal." Indeed.
As part of a ceremony highlighting both his bobblehead and career accomplishments, Rose will give an induction speech, participate in a moderated discussion on stage with a sports journalist and offer a meet-and-greet opportunity with fans wherein (of course) he’ll autograph items.
Over the past year, the general public was able to vote online for the first bobblehead to have his caricatured likeness immortalized by the Hall of Fame, which will be located in Milwaukee but doesn't yet have a physical venue. Rose reportedly received more than 95 percent of respondents’ votes.
The 17-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion, nicknamed "Charlie Hustle" for his no-holds-barred playing style, broke the MLB hits record in 1985 and finished with 4,256 for his career. In 1989, three years after he retired as a player, Rose agreed to permanent ineligibility from baseball for gambling on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds. In 1991, he was formally banned from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Ohio.
Despite multiple attempts at reinstatement, first to former Brewers owner and longtime commissioner Bud Selig and then last year to Selig’s successor Rob Manfred, Rose’s ban remains. In recent years, he has come clean about betting on baseball games and spends much of his time doing public speaking engagements and selling his signature.
Tickets for the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame induction event at The Pabst go on sale March 18.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
