Pete Rose’s complex legacy is the subject of a new HBO docuseries

Pete Rose, who played for the Phillies from 1979 to 1983, was known for playing the game hard, well, and for a long time. Major League Baseball’s all-time leader in hits, Rose exemplified many attributes — like “hustle” and “blue-collar toughness”— that Philadelphia sports fans, especially those of a certain age, tend to appreciate.

In 1989, Rose agreed to a lifetime banishment from baseball after he was accused of betting on his own games while managing the Cincinnati Reds. In the years since, Rose has been involved in a series of public controversies, including a statutory rape allegation, various outrageous statements, and even a sexist run-in with a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter.

All that, and much more, is the subject of Charlie Hustle & the Matter of Pete Rose, a new four-part docuseries debuting on HBO this week. Directed and executive produced by Mark Monroe — and produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company — the series follows Rose over about a year as he makes another push for reinstatement into baseball.

Rose, now 83, sat for hours of interviews for the series, and while many documentaries about famous athletes exist to burnish the reputations of their subjects, that’s not the case here.

“As we point out in the film, no spoiler here, he’s an unreliable narrator of his own story,” Monroe said of Rose. “He’s best known for hitting more baseballs than anybody else and also for lying about his gambling. And when you have one lie, especially a lie that lasts for more than a decade, every answer goes under scrutiny.”

While Rose is a Cincinnati native who began and ended his career with the Reds, his time in Philadelphia is pivotal to the story of his career and the documentary. Sportswriter C. Trent Rosecrans says in the series that it’s unthinkable for any Cincinnati Reds game not to have people in attendance in Rose jerseys; the same is true of Phillies games.

Before the 1979 season, Rose signed with the Phillies for four years for a then-record sum of $3.9 million, thus becoming the first prominent athlete in the free agency era to choose a Philadelphia team. Rose helped lead the Phillies to their first World Series win in 1980 and another Series appearance three years later.

Rose’s banishment kept him from returning to the field at a Phillies game for many years, and in 2017 the Phillies announced that Rose would be inducted into the team’s Wall of Fame.

Those plans were then canceled when an affidavit was filed as part of a defamation lawsuit, in which a woman stated she had a sexual relationship with Rose in the 1970s, beginning when she was 14 or 15 years old. The suit, between Rose and a lawyer who had mentioned the allegation in an interview, was later settled, and Rose has not faced any criminal charges in connection with it.

In 2022, Rose returned to Philadelphia for the team’s alumni weekend, where he was honored as part of the 1980 championship team. At a press interaction, Inquirer reporter Alex Coffey questioned him on the statutory rape allegations.

“No, I’m not here to talk about that. Sorry about that. It was 55 years ago, babe,” he said in response. Later the same day, he offered Coffey 1,000 signed baseballs as a truce.

Filmmaker Monroe, who filmed the incident, called Rose’s reaction “a total kind of meltdown.”

“He’s always accused of shooting himself in the foot, and I was right there when it happened.”

“Pete Rose is right about one thing he said today — it’s been 55 years since the reported inappropriate relationships, and times have changed. It’s no longer acceptable to call a reporter ‘babe’,” the Association for Women in Sports Media said in a statement at the time.

When asked about that weekend in the documentary, Rose says, “It was great…wonderful…I always have the utmost respect for Philly fans.”

“But then that girl ruined it. That reporter ruined it. Some 21-year-old girl started talking about something that supposedly happened 30 years ago.”

Coffey was 29 and an established sports journalist at the time. She had reached out to Rose’s team for comment before the weekend but hadn’t heard back.

“Pete Rose admitted, in court documents, that he had a sexual relationship with a teenager, who he thought was 16 but was actually younger than that,” Coffey said in response to Rose’s comments. “So, nothing ‘supposedly happened.’ It actually happened. He said that relationship started in 1975, but it doesn’t matter how long ago it occurred. And if he is going to celebrate a Phillies team that won the World Series in 1980, it is fair for him to respond to his actions around that same time.”

Coffey was not contacted by the film team for her perspective.

The documentary also features former Phillies Hunter Pence and Mike Schmidt, as well as current Phillies star Kyle Schwarber.

“You see all these things on Pete, you know, whatever it is, positive, negative, whatever. But you know, guys strive to do what he did, in the game, as a player. That’s what you live for,” Schwarber says in the film.

Overall, the filmmaker sought to balance those multiple truths about his subject.

“Baseball is meant to be fun, so I tried to make sure that there was an equal amount of fun and entertainment, alongside the serious discussions about integrity and some of the allegations that have been put against him,” Monroe said.

“Charlie Hustle & the Matter of Pete Rose” debuts its first two parts on July 24 on HBO, and the second two parts on July 25. All four parts begin streaming on Max on July 24.

Staff writer Bedatri D. Choudhury contributed to the article.