Pete Rose was at home playing baseball in Philly. His grandson hopes to do the same.

Pete Rose lived a block from Broad Street, making the subway his fastest route to Veterans Stadium. Rose was one of baseball’s biggest stars yet he rode to work each afternoon on public transportation.

He is an icon in Cincinnati, where he totaled the majority of his record 4,256 hits while playing for his hometown Reds. But his five seasons at the Vet — Rose arrived in 1979 as the missing piece the Phillies sought to finally win the World Series — were enough to win over Philadelphia.

And every game started with a quick ride on the Broad Street Line.

“We got on there before the World Series and it was just pandemonium,” said Rose’s son, Pete. “People chanting ‘Pete’ all the way down Broad Street. It was crazy. They really made us feel like it was home. That was the greatest thing about Philadelphia.”

Rose’s grandson Pete Rose III decided last month to take his baseball career from Cincinnati to Philadelphia, 45 years after the Hit King did the same. The young Rose, who goes by P.J., started classes this semester at La Salle University. He will be an infielder on the school’s baseball team next year when the sport returns to campus after being eliminated in 2020.

P.J. Rose visited Philadelphia for the first time in August after hearing about it for years from his father, who says he can still taste the mustard on a Vet hot dog. Rose Jr. spent his summers in Philly, riding the subway with his father and then hanging around the ballpark as a ball boy while Pete Rose won over the fans with his Charlie Hustle attitude and the way he spiked baseballs into the AstroTurf after each inning.

P.J. Rose was a linebacker in high school in Cincinnati with dreams of playing college football before deciding as a senior that he would play baseball. He spent a season at a prep school and latched on with La Salle, which was looking for players after reinstating the sport.

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Pete Rose Jr. told his son where in Philly to find a cheesesteak, a slice of pizza, and a water ice. And if P.J. Rose wants to ride down Broad Street, there’s a subway stop near campus.

“Everyone knew my dad took the subway,” Rose Jr. said. “I just remember my dad being a man of the people. There were no selfies back then, so people just wanted to come up and shake his hand. It was great to be a part of that. It was a different kind of blue collar than it was on the west side of Cincinnati.”

Pete Rose Jr. was drafted in June 1988, 14 months before his father received a lifetime ban from baseball for betting on the game.

“I remember the Orioles sent me home for two weeks because no one could get to my dad but everyone could get to me,” he said. “I was just a young kid out of high school trying to figure this all out.”

His father’s shadow followed him everywhere — “I never played a baseball game where hecklers didn’t come after me with a gambling comment or something negative,” the son said — but Pete Rose Jr. still wanted to emulate his dad.

He grew up in major-league clubhouses, played catch on the field before games with his father, and dreamed of being a hitter like him as well. The young Rose crouched down at the plate like his dad, tried to pepper singles instead of homers, and sprinted everywhere he went.

But it was easier to look like the Hit King than to perform like him. Rose Jr. did not reach double A until he was 25 years old and in his third organization.

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“For the longest time, it was pressure,” said Rose Jr., whose social-media handle is fittingly HitPrince. “I didn’t think I could make a mistake. I didn’t think I could strike out. I didn’t think I could make an error. I thought I had to be perfect. One day, Pops sat me down and said, ‘As long as you’re on time and you play the game the way you’re supposed to, which means hard, I’ll be as proud as you if you go 0-for-4 or 4-for-4.’ Once I understood that, it took a lot of pressure off me.”

The White Sox released Rose after the 1996 season, making him a 26-year-old free agent who played eight minor-league seasons without reaching triple A. Something needed to change.

“My dad said, ‘Hey, you have to be yourself,’ ” Rose Jr. said.

The younger Rose signed a minor-league deal with the Reds, changed his batting stance, started to swing for power, and finally reached the majors at the end of the 1997 season. Rose Jr. played 21 professional seasons — including a season with the Phils in Reading — and those 11 games in September 1997 were his only taste of the majors. He made it there by finally being himself.

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“That’s all I ever wanted to do as far as I could remember. Be a big-league baseball player,” Rose Jr. said. “It was my dream to chase and I wasn’t going to listen to anyone else say, ‘You’re not going to do this.’ That’s just fire.”

P.J. Rose remembers trying to eat dinner at a restaurant in Cincinnati while other patrons kept stopping by the table to talk to his grandfather, who is 83 now.

“I would be like, ‘Why are there so many people coming up to him?’ ” he said. “Can we not eat dinner in peace? Then I realized who he was.”

The Hit King was his dad’s hero. For P.J. Rose, the guy with three World Series rings is just Grandpa. Perhaps that explains why P.J. Rose’s performance never dipped in high school when his grandfather stopped by the field.

“My dad will come watch P.J. hit and I’ll put myself in his shoes,” Rose Jr. said. “I remember for the longest time, that whenever my dad came, I stunk. Strikeouts, errors, you name it. Anything that could go wrong, would go wrong. My son is different. He just doesn’t care. Pops will come and watch him hit and it will be line drive after line drive after line drive. As a guy that went through it, I’m like, ‘How do you do this?’ Whenever he comes, it’s a different atmosphere. The intensity raises, the room raises. But P.J. doesn’t care.”

Like his dad, P.J. Rose grew up in baseball clubhouses. Instead of Riverfront Stadium and the Vet, P.J. spent his summers shagging fly balls in Great Falls, Mont., while his father managed, and having the minor-league bus driver stop at a McDonald’s in Hagerstown, Md., so he could order chicken nuggets.

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The stakes were different but the education was the same. P.J. Rose saw what it meant to play every day and watched his father demand that his players hustle the way the Roses did. He grew up around the game just like his dad did years earlier.

“I was always being taught what to do and what not to do on the baseball field and off the baseball field,” P.J. Rose said. “It was an awesome experience and I’m glad for that.”

P.J. Rose committed to La Salle after seeing a tweet from David Miller, the Explorers’ baseball coach, that the program was looking for players who could come to campus a year before games started. Miller, a high school star at Chestnut Hill Academy who was a first-round pick in 1995 by Cleveland, roomed with Pete Rose Jr. in the minor leagues.

P.J. Rose toured the campus in August and started classes a few weeks later. It was a perfect fit. Yes, he plans to hustle.

“That’s in the genes,” P.J. Rose said. “Playing as hard as I can. Show up on time and have fun playing ball. I’ve been preached that my entire life from my dad and my grandpa. They say, ‘When you show up to the ball field, I ask for three things: show up on time, play hard, and have fun.’ He doesn’t care if I do good or bad. If I do those three things, we’re all good.”

Pete Rose III will play baseball in the same city that once adored Pete Rose.

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“The pressure is always going to be there. It’s going to be there for any player,” Rose Jr. said. “But as long as P.J. understands, you’re not going to get 4,000 hits. I remember Pops saying, ‘Why should you get 4,000 hits? There’s only two guys that have it. Why should you?’ He ain’t lying. As long as P.J. shows up on time and plays hard, that’s all I can ask for as a baseball guy and a dad.”

Pete Rose told his son during Game 6 of the 1980 World Series to head straight to the clubhouse if the Phillies became champions. The subway ride that afternoon was wild enough that Rose could only imagine what the scene would be at the Vet if the Phils finally won.

The son had the best seat in the stadium, seated in the dugout next to the bat boy with a uniform like his dad’s. He was right there when his father grabbed the second out of the ninth inning when a foul pop bounced from Bob Boone’s mitt. Police officers on horseback lined the outfield fence. The stadium was ready to explode.

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“When I watch that back now, I don’t even watch the catch,” Rose Jr. said. “I watch the two dribbles on the run, and the shovel pass to Tug McGraw and telling him it was two outs and sprinting back to first base. My dad loved Philly. My dad’s a blue-collar guy. He loves that atmosphere. I think that’s why they got behind him so much. He’s not from Philly, but if you watch him play, you could probably say he is from Philly because of how Philly guys play and they work hard and they’re no-nonsense types of people.”

One batter later, the Phils were champs. The son headed to the clubhouse and woke up the next morning for the World Series parade. He rode in a float on Broad Street — just above the subway his father took to work — and still remembers the sea of people that awaited the team in JFK Stadium.

“It was unbelievable,” Rose Jr. said. “You can’t describe it. You get chills thinking about it.”

They were from Cincinnati, but Pete Rose and his son felt at home in Philadelphia. And now they hope Pete Rose III feels the same.

“It’s crazy to think that my son is actually going to college in Philadelphia,” Rose Jr. said. “My dad said, ‘Another Rose playing baseball in Philly. Who would have thought?’ I said, ‘You know what, Pops? You’re right. Who would have thought?’ ”