Pete Rose was the kind of guy you loved if he was on your team, and hated if he wasn’t. His aggression and nonstop energy, his desire to win at any cost astonished even his toughest opponents. “If you have someone equal in ability to me I will beat him every time because I will try harder,” he used to say. That ferocious desire to win and easy ability to charm strangers meant Rose mostly won in life. But when he lost—at gambling, in personal relationships, with Major League Baseball’s front office—the world saw the other side of him. Rose was loved for the same reason he was hated. Because he was consumed by and reflected back to us the entire bloody human carnival, all of its virtues and, if not all, at least a lot of its vices. He was the most of us and the least of us. He had it all, and he never stopped giving it until the day he died. This magazine tells the complete story, Pete Rose’s story.