The Cincinnati Reds announced this morning that they will be honoring Pete Rose — baseball’s all-time hits leader — all season long with a jersey patch.
Unlike the Milwaukee Brewers, who just announced a specially designed memorial jersey patch for Bob Uecker, the Reds memorial patch will be a simple black and white circular patch, with only Rose’s No. 14 inside the patch.
Rose died on September 30, 2024 at the age of 83. The Reds held a Pete Rose memorial at their ballpark last November, when Rose’s family hosted a 14-hour visitation. The team will also celebrate Pete’s life and career with a special “Pete Rose Day” on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. No further details are yet available.
The Reds have already made some changes made around the ballpark to honor Rose, including a No. 14 jersey design being added to the outfield padding, a banner of Rose reading “14 FOREVER” and a black remembrance band over his retired number. They’ll continue the tributes this year with the jersey patch.
The Reds announced the Rose memorial patch via social media, with the words, “14 on our side all season.”
14 on our side all season ❤️ pic.twitter.com/l6IQvWdAhQ
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) February 10, 2025
I’m happy the Reds will honor Rose’s passing with the memorial patch — no matter what your opinions on a very complicated man, who fought until his dying day to be reinstated into baseball, he certainly deserves this honor. I had anticipated the team wearing a memorial patch, but I didn’t know whether Rose would get a specifically-designed memorial (like the Brewers have done with Bob Eucker) or a “standard” black and white patch. The team has chosen the latter.
Like most other MLB clubs, the Reds have an advertiser patch on one of their sleeves, so the Rose memorial will appear on the opposite sleeve.
Your thoughts?
Seems a little incongruous or inconsistent with the team/sport honoring his passing when he’s considered banned from the sport. Something about this just doesn’t make sense to me.
That being said as a fan of baseball, I think he deserves to be honored and deserves his place baseball history.
Not to be gauche, but I believe he was technically “banned for life” and well, you could say the ban has ended.
Not so. He was declared permanently ineligible.
As one of the most accomplished players on the 1975-76 repeat champion Big Red Machine, and also as a native son of Cincinnati, I would have bet the Reds would have done a grander patch than just the number
I mean he’s a cheater and admitted he slept with at least one underage girl. I feel like he’s lucky to get this memorial.
The list of cheaters and criminals in MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL is so incredibly long. You’d have to have an area of “great players, but a criminal” in the stadia.
Gambling on your team and being a pedophile still seems like crimes not as easily forgotten.
Phil, you misspelled Bob Uecker’s name.
Ugh. And I just typed it like 20 times in the Brewers memorial patch article.
Now fixed (thanks!)
Seems like a pretty perfunctory patch job. Which doesn’t surprise me too much, despite his career success: between the lifetime ban and him being kind of an awful dude, a big celebration of life probably wasn’t in the cards.
That number font doesn’t match anything Rose wore with the Reds. The team’s large NOBs were iconic during the Big Red Machine, so I would have preferred the patch have “ROSE” and “14” in the font, proportions and placement as the back of the 1970s unis.
Simple and classy. I’m of the mind that uni memorials should be simple. Save the complex and larger memorials for the ball park. We’ll done, Reds.
There’s a lot of “except for [fill in the blank with Pete’s offenses]”, but still, could they not have overlaid 4256 with 14 somehow? Didn’t he sign his autograph that way? Or incorporate a crown on top of the 14 for “Hit King”? Like him or not, dude could rake, and 4,256 hits is an amazing stat.
“Dignified” patch?
Nothing about rose is dignified.
He’s probably settled in by now in the Seventh Circle.
Plenty of athletes convicted of worse than Rose are in the HOF and/or had memorial patches.
OJ Simpson?
Billy Martin?
Vida Blue?
You gonna be OK when cheaters like Bonds, Sosa, etc. pass and the Giants/Cubs wear a patch for them?
Philly announced anything for Rose? I know he only played a few seasons there, but did help them win it all in 1980.
As far as I know they haven’t done anything but they definitely should most of his 1980 teammates said admit they wouldn’t have won without him.
He deserves a patch! This patch appears to be Phillies maroon from the time he played with them.
Ichiro Suzuki is baseball’s all-time hits leader and by a lot.
Don’t waste your energy. I have been chastised repeatedly by staff and readers alike for attempting to expand UW’s worldview. Like they actually get upset when I remind them that there’s a world beyond North America.
I think you summed it up well about him being a complicated man. No requirement for an athlete to be a role model and Pete well was his own worst enemy and the few times I saw him signing autographs for money, I avoided him. However, I do think its a fitting gesture by the Reds to honor him with a patch. People can’t always be who they are on the field as what we hope off the field.
Fits right in with all previous player memorial patches they’ve worn (Frank Robinson link , Joe Morgan link ). If he didn’t have all the other issues, I could see them going a little more special for a record-holding player and native Cincinnatian, but doing his the same as they’ve done for others hits a good middle ground.