-
Outfielder Pete Rose #14 of the Cincinnati Reds salutes the crowd after surpassing Ty Cobb with his 4,192th hit that came against San Diego Padres pitcher Eric Show on Sept. 11, 1985, at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio.Focus On Sport—Getty Images
-
Pete Rose #14 of the Cincinnati Reds follows through with the hit against the San Diego Padres during a game on Sept. 11, 1985 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio.Rich Pilling—MLB Photos/Getty Images
-
Cincinnati Reds Pete Rose (14) in action, rounding first base after setting hitting record with No. 4,192 career hit during game vs San Diego Padres.Tony Tomsic—Sports Illustrated/Getty Images
-
View of the scoreboard saying as Pete Rose #14 of the Cincinnati Reds made his 4,192th hit.Rich Pilling—MLB Photos/Getty Images
-
Outfielder Pete Rose #14 of the Cincinnati Reds is surrounded by teammates and lifted in the air by Tony Perez #24, after surpassing Ty Cobb with his 4,192th hit.Focus On Sport—Getty Images
-
Pete Rose #14 of the Cincinnati Reds stands with an announcer in victory on his 4,192th hit.Rich Pilling—MLB Photos/Getty Images
The 1985 baseball season was nearing its end when the moment fans had been waiting for finally happened. Exactly 30 years ago Friday—on Sept. 11, 1985—in the first inning of the Cincinnati Reds win over the San Diego Padres, Pete Rose whacked his 4,192nd career hit, surpassing Ty Cobb’s career record.
As TIME noted, the new mark was set 57 years to the day after Cobb’s final major-league at bat (although there has since been debate over whether Cobb’s record was slightly inflated). Later, in reflecting on the achievement, Rose claimed to have seen Cobb’s ghost up in the stands.
In a cover story on Rose that August, TIME explained why the veteran star’s chase meant so much to fans:
He is 44 years old but seems both younger and older, sort of timeless too, and he is still thriving at the major league level. In an ordinary profession, the 40s may be a disquieting, though far from a disqualifying age. Mortality’s half time. But for a 44-year-old ballplayer, the end is more than just perceivable. The fight to hold it off is well on. And the spectators know that the struggle represents no less than a simple love of life. This beguiling summer, the most single-minded baseball player since Ty Cobb has done better than play with time. He has reached back into it to play with Cobb. It took Pete Rose two decades and more, just a blink and a nod on the eternal baseball schedule, but he has come to both a paramount moment in his game and a place of moment in any enterprise. By the numbers and beyond them, he is what he does. Rose is baseball.
Coiled to the left of home plate, he has scarcely stirred from the position he staked nearly 23 major league seasons, almost 4,192 hits, ago. The brush-cut hair that blew to bangs and billowed to bouffant has been tamed and dyed. The kneesprung crouch has lost barely a trace of temper. The burly body remains respectably taut, a gunnysack full of cantaloupes and cannonballs. The seamed and arid face, a slowly eroding riverbed, is as wide open as a gap-toothed grin. It is the map of an obstinate man with 737 doubles who still flings himself flat and breaststrokes like a gopher into second base.
Rose would go on to hit a total of 4,256 career hits—but his skill with the bat was eventually overshadowed. Before the decade was over, Rose was found to have gambled on major league games and was thus banned from baseball and its Hall of Fame. He recently applied for reinstatement, although reports of what appears to be further confirmation of his gambling may dampen the effort.
Read TIME’s August 1985 Pete Rose cover story, here in the TIME Vault: Play Ball!
- The Man Who Thinks He Can Live Forever
- Rooftop Solar Power Has a Dark Side
- Death and Desperation Take Over the World's Largest Refugee Camp
- Right-Wing's New Aim: a Parallel Economy
- Is It Flu, COVID-19, or RSV? Navigating At-Home Tests
- Kerry Washington: The Story of My Abortion
- How Canada and India's Relationship Crumbled
- Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time