A Rose blooms … and later wilts

Pete Rose during spring training in 1963

Four weeks before making his major league debut wearing his more familiar No. 14, a chunky 21-year-old infielder named Pete Rose plays his first spring training game 61 years ago today for Cincinnati.

Rose replaces hobbling regular Don Blasingame at second base and goes 2-for-2 against the Chicago White Sox.

Rose ends up permanently replacing the 30-year-old Blasingame at second base and finishes the 1963 season as the National League's rookie of the year.

Rose ends up playing 24 years in the majors with Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Montreal.

Pete Rose during his time in Philly

By the time his career ends in 1986, Rose accumulates a record 4,256 base hits for a .303 lifetime batting average in 3,562 games with 14,053 at-bats over 15,890 plate appearances.

No one in the game’s history plays in more games or comes to bat more times than Rose.

He also wins three batting titles, a National League MVP award and two Gold Gloves.

Then there are those 17 All-Star selections and three World Series rings.

“I’m just like everybody else,” Rose once says. “I have two arms, two legs and 4,000 hits.”

Only Rose is not like everybody else.

His brilliant on-field career seemingly becomes a subplot to his life after Rose in 1989 accepts a lifetime ban for violating the No. 1 rule in the game by betting on baseball.

The banishment prevents Rose from enshrinement in the Hall of Fame, a place where his career remains well documented in exhibits but his inclusion in the hallowed plaque gallery is not.

“They haven’t given too many gamblers a second chance in the world of baseball,” Rose says.