Thirty-five years ago, Charlie Hustle was struck out by Bartlett Giamatti and expelled from professional baseball. Now, on this final September evening of 2024, as the regular season comes to a close, Pete Rose, the quintessential Cincinnati Red, has rounded the bases one final time, and exited this terrestrial ballpark. He left a mark on the sport as indelible as the scars he inflicted upon his adversaries in the base path. His drive and passion for the game, second to none, gave him the work ethic to push harder for victory and cemented his status as legend among legends. He could swing a bat from either side of the plate and still consistently acquire base hits, and he played five positions on the defensive portion of the diamond during his lengthy career. A homer among homers, Rose grew up only a few miles from the crowds he would consistently dazzle and charm for the better part of three decades. Encouraged to sport by his semi-pro football father, a man of deliberate words and intense expectations, and introduced to the Reds via a favor to his uncle, Pete made himself a family of the people of "Porkopolis," and he was himself a favorite son of the Ohio city. His expulsion from the game deemed an insufficient humiliation, prior to an era when Michael Jordan could endure scandals and still remain affiliated with the NBA, the MLB Hall of Fame, a body largely consisting of paunchy, sagging, newsprint-stained, green-eyed monsters who fall into the axiom "those who can't do, talk about those who can," saw fit to keep him from a destination for which he should have been fast tracked by the end of the first decade in his storied career. Instead, he was locked out of his own kingdom by those who couldn't hoist his heavy lumber with all their collective might. Was his betting on baseball a disappointment? Arguably, yes. Was it sufficient to keep him out of Cooperstown? Absolutely not. Pete Rose deserved better. Rest in peace, Kid.