May 5, 1978: Pete Rose collects his 3,000th hit

Pete Rose’s 24-season career, spent entirely in the National League, included 17 All-Star Game appearances and three batting titles. He won the NL Rookie of the Year Award in 1963 and the Most Valuable Player Award in 1973. Rose played on three World Series champions and was the World Series MVP in 1975, when his Cincinnati Reds defeated the Boston Red Sox in a memorable seven-game series.

He also holds the major-league record for career hits with 4,256. But in spite of his tremendous on-field accomplishments, Rose is not a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1989 Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti declared him permanently ineligible from baseball after the Dowd Report found that Rose had bet on baseball. After years of denying the allegation, Rose, in a 2004 book, admitted that he had bet on baseball.1

Rose was born and raised in Cincinnati. His uncle, a scout for the Reds, persuaded the team to sign Rose after he graduated from high school in 1960. Rose spent three years in the Reds’ minor-league system before he was brought up to the big-league club in 1963, beginning a 16-season run in Cincinnati.

Not only was Rose integral to the Big Red Machine, which won four pennants and two World Series from 1970 to 1976, Charlie Hustle collected hits like Peggy Guggenheim collected art. He had more than 200 hits nine times as a Red, and a career-best 230 in 1973.

Rose reached 1,000 hits with a safety in his 831st game, on June 26, 1968, on his way to his first of two consecutive batting crowns. It took him less than five years and just 769 more games to get to 2,000 hits. He arrived with a four-hit game on June 19, 1973 – the season of his third batting title – against the Giants in San Francisco.

Rose finished 1977 with 2,966 hits, 34 shy of the 3,000-hit plateau. He celebrated his 37th birthday eight days after Opening Day 1978. When asked that spring about reaching the milestone he replied, “The reason I’m not worried about the 3,000, really worried about it, is I’m going to make it. The one I really want more than anything else is [Stan Musial’s 3,630 hits]. If I can catch Stan, that’ll give me the National League record. [Ty Cobb] has the all-time record [4,189 hits]. He’s out a little too far for me to catch.”2 (Rose proved himself wrong seven years later when he broke Cobb’s record on September 8, 1985.3)

Rose racked up 32 hits in the Reds’ first 23 games of 1978. His tear included the first three-homer game of his career, on April 29 in Shea Stadium, where New York Mets fans gave him a standing ovation before his last at-bat, and a two-hit game against the Philadelphia Phillies on May 3, which set his career total at 2,998.4

The Montréal Expos came to Cincinnati for a four-game series beginning on Friday, May 5. The Expos were in first place in the NL East Division, while the Reds were just one game back in the NL West. A crowd of 37,823 fans came out to Riverfront Stadium on a cold, dreary night. Many were there primarily in hopes of witnessing Rose’s milestone hit.5

The starting pitcher for the Expos was right-hander Steve Rogers. Rogers, a veteran of five big-league seasons, all with Montréal, had a 2-3 record and a 3.55 earned-run average in five 1978 starts.

The Reds countered with another righty, Tom Hume. Hume, who was in his second big-league season, had struggled in his previous start, allowing six earned runs in 3⅓ innings. Like Rogers, Hume owned a 2-3 record and was making his sixth start of the young season, but his ERA was 6.00.

The Expos went down in order in the first. Rose led off in the home half of the inning. He reached first when left fielder Warren Cromartie dropped his line drive, then second when Cromartie made a wild throw. Cromartie was charged with two errors on the play; the milestone-hopeful crowd booed the scoring decision.6 Rogers retired the next three batters to keep the Reds off the scoreboard.

Hume walked Gary Carter to open the second and paid for the transgression. A single by Tony Perez – in his second season with Montréal after spending 13 seasons in Cincinnati – and a fly out by Ellis Valentine advanced Carter to third. One out later, Chris Speier’s single scored Carter for a 1-0 Reds’ lead.

Rogers struck out the side in the bottom of the second, and Hume retired the Expos in order in the third. Cesar Geronimo walked to lead off the bottom of the third. After Hume sacrificed Geronimo to second, Rose came up for the second time. His high chopper to Rogers was ruled a hit – the 2,999th of his career.

Geronimo took third on Rose’s hit but was thrown out at home after Ken Griffey Sr. grounded to first, and Rogers struck out Joe Morgan to end the inning, preserving Montréal’s one-run lead.

With two outs in the fourth, back-to-back home runs by Valentine and Larry Parrish increased the Expos’ lead to 3-0. Johnny Bench returned the home-run favor in the bottom of the inning, making the score 3-1.7

Continuing his mastery in the odd-numbered frames, Hume set the Reds down in order in the top of the fifth. In the bottom half, Rogers struck out the first two batters. This brought Rose to the plate with the bases empty.

Batting lefty, Rose assumed his trademark crouch in the box. The crowd booed when Rogers’ first pitch was a ball.8 Rose lashed the next pitch to left field for a clean single that gave him 3,000 career hits.

Upon reaching first, Rose was greeted warmly at the bag by his former teammate, Perez, who was guarding the sack for the Expos. The game paused as Rose’s teammates poured out of the first-base dugout to congratulate him with handshakes and slaps on the back as the crowd gave him a five-minute standing ovation.9 When action resumed, Rogers retired Griffey Sr. to end the inning.

Neither team could tally a run over the next two innings. Rose came to the plate in the seventh with a chance to add to his career hit total but grounded to shortstop.

Dale Murray came on to pitch for the Reds in the eighth. Murray retired the first two batters he faced, but a double by Valentine and a single by Parrish, pushed the Expos’ lead to 4-1. That insurance proved important when Morgan singled with one out in the bottom of the inning, and Dan Driessen sent a Rogers offering over the right-field wall for a two-run homer. The Reds now trailed by a single run.

But Cincinnati got no closer, as Rogers retired the Reds in order in the ninth to close out the 4-3 win. Rose was on deck when pinch-hitter Dave Collins grounded out to end the game.

Former Reds pitcher Joe Nuxhall, then a radio broadcaster in Cincinnati, interviewed Rose on the field after the game.10 When asked about his historic night. Rose opined, “My main objective as always is to win the game because I knew I would get the two hits I needed sooner or later. I’m just glad I got them tonight and now it’s all over.”11

He added, “If I had to dedicate my 3,000th hit, it would be to the Cincinnati fans. It’s 35 degrees and 37,000 people show up. That is something.”12

Nuxhall noted that Rose looked emotional standing on first after the 3,000th hit, and Charlie Hustle replied, “Johnny Bench shook my hand so hard he almost broke it.” He continued, “The longer and louder they cheered, the more choked up I got. At the end I was close to tears. But Perez nudged me and took the pressure off.”13

Rose, whose 3,000th hit came in his 2,370th big-league game, became the 13th major leaguer to reach 3,000 hits, and the second to reach the milestone in Cincinnati. Henry Aaron had collected his 3,000th hit in the Queen City in 1970.

Later in 1978, Rose hit safely in 44 consecutive games – equaling the second-longest streak in major-league history after Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game streak in 1941 – but his time in Cincinnati was nearing its end. On December 5, seven months to the day after his 3,000th hit, Rose signed a five-year free-agent contract with the Phillies. He had 3,164 hits at that point.

In Philadelphia he played on two pennant winners and one World Series champion and added a 10th 200-hit season.14 His 3,631st career hit, on August 10, 1981, gave him the all-time NL mark, passing Musial.

Rose had 826 hits with the Phillies, leaving him at 3,990 when his contract was up after the 1983 season. He signed with Montréal for 1984, and his 10th hit of that season, against Philadelphia’s Jerry Koosman on April 13, gave him 4,000. Coincidentally, Rogers, who surrendered the 3,000th hit, was his Montréal teammate in 1984.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to John Fredland for his insightful comments on the first draft of this story. The article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for team, season, and player pages and logs and the box scores and play-by-play for this game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN197805050.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1978/B05050CIN1978.htm

Notes

1 Peter Rose and Rick Hill, My Prison Without Bars (Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale Books, 2004).

2 Ernie Salvatore, “3,000 No Worry for Rose, He Wants Musial,” San Bernadino County (California) Sun, May 4, 1978: D-4.

3 Cory Ritterbusch, “September 8, 1985: Reds’ Pete Rose Unknowingly Breaks Ty Cobb’s Hit Record,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-8-1985-rose-unknowingly-breaks-hit-record/.

4 Bob Hertzel, “Rose’s Three Home Runs Mesmerize Mets,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 30, 1978: 25.

5 Diane Pucin, “Opportunity to See History Attracts Fans,” Cincinnati Post, May 6, 1978: 32.

6 Bob Hertzel, “Pete Gets 3,000th Among Riverfront Standing Ovation,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 6, 1978: 1; Hal McCoy, “A Hit to Remember: No. 3,000 Is Prototype Pete Rose, a Sizzling Single to Left,” Dayton Daily News, May 6, 1978: 6.

7 It was the 293rd home run of Bench’s career; he reached 300 on July 26, 1978, against Nino Espinosa of the Mets.

8 Earl Lawson, “Pete’s Next Goal: Musial’s 3,630 Hits,” The Sporting News, May 20, 1978: 3.

9 Action transcribed from the following video: MLB.com, “May 5, 1978, Pete Rose’s 3,000th Hit,” https://www.mlb.com/video/pete-rose-s-3-000th-hit-c1959692183 (last accessed January 18, 2023).

10 In 1944 Nuxhall became the youngest player in major-league history at 15 years, 10 months. He appeared in 526 games over 16 big-league seasons, holds Cincinnati’s franchise record for most games pitched in by a left-hander with 484, and was a Reds broadcaster through the 2004 season.

11 Lawson, “Pete’s Next Goal: Musial’s 3,630 Hits.”

12 Bob Hertzel, ““Pete Gets 3,000th Among Riverfront Standing Ovation.”

13 United Press International, “Pete Gets Choked Up After Standing Ovation,” New Castle (Pennsylvania) News, May 6, 1978:16.

14 As of 2023, Rose’s 10 200-hit seasons were tied with Ichiro Suzuki for the major-league record.