Pete Rose Is Sorry: 'I Finally Get It'

Pete Rose is making nice-nice with his former Cincinnati Reds teammates—and maybe trying to convince baseball that he's contrite enough to be reinstated and enter its Hall of Fame. "I'm kind of a hardheaded guy," he tells AP. "That's probably the reason I got all those damn hits. It took me years to figure out what he was saying was to step forward and 'fess up and take responsibility for what you did," he said, referring to former baseball chief Bart Giamatti. "In the last several years, I finally get it. I understand."

Rose says he has apologized to old teammates, in particular Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench, for his gambling scandal and the fact that he bet on Reds games as a player-manager. "I expressed how sorry I was to those guys, if I caused any embarrassment over the years," Rose said. "I'm perfectly happy inside right now—understand what I'm saying? I think anybody that knows me knows that I'm very sorry. I understand the mistakes I made."
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