Pete Rose Reinstated by MLB: Western Hills High Celebrates Hit King’s Legacy

Cincinnati’s Hometown Hero Honored as Mustangs Win CMAC Title and Rose Returns to Baseball

Both the Cincinnati Reds and Western Hills High School Mustangs honored the Hit King this week. / Albert Cesare/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Pulling onto the north driveway named after Pete Rose at Western Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio feels a little sweeter these days. 

Not only did the beloved Mustangs varsity baseball team and coach Stephen Colyer capture another Cincinnati Metro Athletic Conference title by defeating the Withrow Tigers to win their 9th straight CMAC championship and finish undefeated in conference play, but some other historic news also was delivered this week from Major League Baseball regarding MLB’s all-time hit leader and former Mustang.

A 1960 graduate of Western Hills, Rose is officially back in the bigs where he rightfully belongs following Commissioner Rob Manfred’s announcement on Tuesday to remove Rose and 16 other deceased individuals from the league’s permanently ineligible list. It’s been a long time coming after 36 years, but go ahead and count up another big hit for the Hit King. 

Pete Roses' reinstatement to MLB celebrated by his high school alma mater

“Speaking for our athletic department, Pete was a fantastic ball player and we are very excited that he has been reinstated by Major League Baseball. His career has had an everlasting impact on our school and the West Hi community,” Athletic Director, Chloe Mayfield-Brown, told High School on SI. 

“It's great to see that he can finally be recognized for it.”

Playing second base for the 1959 Western Hills High School baseball team: Pete Rose (second from left). / Chloe Mayfield-Brown/Western Hills High School

From his early years at Sayler Park Elementary to attending high school at Western Hills, Peter Edward Rose is forever remembered for being a standout athlete in baseball and football in a graduating class of 571 students.

Playing second base for Mustangs legendary head coach Paul Nohr, “Little Pete Rose” (as he was referred to in newspaper clippings of the era) would grow to receive a Hamilton County honorable mention in baseball from both the Cincinnati Post and Times-Star in 1959. Yet it’s on the gridiron where Rose truly shined at halfback for the Mustangs.

Peter Rose was a high school football sensation

Known for being a broken field runner, he’d later be invited to the University of Tennessee for a football tryout before claiming he returned to baseball due to his diminutive size. Just like Rose’s trademark competitive fire at the plate and aggressive demeanor on the base-paths, the kid in the white No.55 jersey for West Hi was equally relentless on the football field. In 1958, Rose helped lead the Mustangs to a No. 17 ranking in the state and a public high school co-championship. 

A two-sport athlete, Rose was equally competitive and fiery as a halfback for the Mustangs in 1958. / Chloe Mayfield-Brown/Western Hills High School

That was long before becoming Charlie Hustle. Long before the 4,256 hits. 

Long before becoming the driving force behind Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine,” playing alongside Dave Concepción, George Foster, Tony Perez and Ken Griffey Sr. Rose was a Western Hills legend.

All of this was long before winning two World Series (1975 and 1976) with the Reds and a third with the Philadelphia Phillies (1980) and long before earning National League MVP and World Series MVP honors. It was long before 17 All-Star selections, two Gold Glove Awards, and three batting titles. Also, long before Rose voluntarily accepted a permanent place on baseball’s ineligible list on August 24, 1989 after then-Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti’s ruling that Rose bet on MLB games in 1987 while serving as manager of the Reds.

Reinstating Pete Rose, and others, lessens the sting of a black eye on baseball

The sting left by the black eye in baseball was felt by Rose, his family, and fans alike for over three decades, particularly each January when balloting for the Hall of Fame rolls around. No stranger to baseball’s rich history and the stigma that surrounds his place in it, Rose was the first person banned, after the tenure of MLB’s first Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, to die while still on the ineligible list. 

Along with reinstating Rose, Manfred and MLB also reinstated a number of individuals associated with the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal and other players and managers who passed away while on the permanently ineligible list including: Eddie Cicotte, Happy Felsch, Chick Gandil, Joe Jackson, Fred McMullin, Swede Risberg, Buck Weaver, Lefty Williams, Joe Gedeon, Gene Paulette, Benny Kauff, Lee Magee, Phil Douglas, Cozy Dolan, Jimmy O’Connell and William Cox.

Sadly, MLB’s monumental decision comes after the passing of Rose from a heart attack last September in Las Vegas at 83 years old. It comes in response to a petition from Rose’s family. On Wednesday night, in front of a capacity crowd of 43,585 at Great American Ball Park, while facing, inronically, the Chicago White Sox, the Cincinnati Reds honored their hometown son on “Pete Rose NIght,” with all fans in attendance receiving a replica Rose No. 14 jersey.

Six miles away on the campus of West Hi, the Mustangs held their very own “Pete Rose Day” to honor one of their own during their last home game of the season against Miami Valley Christian Academy. Much like the Reds dropping a heartbreaker to the White Sox, 4-2, the Mustangs came up short on the day falling to MVCA, 10-5. 

Roses are placed around the Pete Rose statue outside Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati on May 14, 2025. / Albert Cesare/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Time to dust the dirt off, get back up on your feet, and go back to work. Western Hills takes on the Mariemont Warriors at home in non-conference action on Friday night. Pete’s day to shine is coming once again. Some might say with the news about Rose’s MLB reinstatement, that moment is here and now.

His iconic No. 14 is retired in Cincinnati where Rose is featured among the franchise’s greats enshrined in the Reds Hall of Fame. He’s also among the outstanding athletes from Ohio and Northern Kentucky included in Buddy LaRosa’s High School Sports Hall of Fame. For that matter, Rose is even included in the WWE Hall of Fame thanks to taking an unforgettable tombstone pile driver from professional wrestler, Kane, at Wrestlemania 14 in 1998. 

Could the National Baseball Hall of Fame and a bronze plaque in Cooperstown, New York be next for Pete Rose?

The late-great Western Hills Mustang is eligible for enshrinement in 2027.