Pete Rose Records and the Baseball Cards that Love Them

When you think of the records that Pete Rose accumulated over his Major League career, one inevitably rises to the top — the all-time mark for hits he established in 1985 to surpass Ty Cobb.

That 4192 (record-breaking number of hits) was such a big number, it inspired T-shirts, license plates, and all sorts of other memorabilia.

In the end, Charlie Hustle finished with 4256 safeties, and we’d later learn he outdistanced Cobb by more than we thought due to some record-keeping errors in the early 20th century.

But as monumental as Rose’s hit mark stands today, even in the face of all the controversy and disgrace that has followed, the fact is, it’s just one of many Pete Rose records lined up in the roll call of baseball history.

Here, then, is a rundown of the records Rose holds, broken down by overall MLB marks and National League-only marks.

Oh, and as you might expect, there have been plenty of baseball cards issued over the years commemorating Rose’s accomplishments, so I’ve included a quick discussion of most of those along the way, too.

Let’s hustle to it!

(This post contains affiliate links to eBay and Amazon card listings. If you click a link and buy something on eBay or Amazon, we may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you.)

Major League Records

These are the marks that Rose holds above all other Major Leaguers, regardless of where they played …

Most career at-bats (14,053)

Rose leads second-placer Hank Aaron by nearly 1700 at-bats, but this just isn’t the sort of record that’s sexy enough for its own card.

Most career plate appearances (15,890)

Rose has an even wider lead here (1898), but it’s an even less glamorous record than ABs — no cards that I know of.

Most career hits (4256)

Now THIS record is where it’s at when it comes to Pete Rose … it’s the big one (no, not 700 WLW). This is one that made him a hero (for awhile) and put him in the same breath (and above) with Ty Cobb.

And it’s the one that got Pete some sweet commemorative cardboard, like this 1986 Topps Record Breaker (#206):

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And the 1986 Fleer Super Star Special (#628), with even special-er gold accents:

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Let’s not forget Donruss’s cheeky “Ty Breaking” card, either:

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And then, of course, there was the embarrassment of Rose riches in the base Topps set, beyond that RB card …

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Most career singles (3215)

This one pretty much just came along for the ride with Charlie Hustle’s overall hits records, but Topps used it as a prelude to their 1986 barrage of Rose cards (above) by including him on the #6 Record Breaker card in the 1985 set:

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Most career times on base (5929)

Rose stands 330 safeties ahead of his nearest competition here — that would be Barry Bonds, making for perhaps the most disliked 1-2 on any baseball leaders list ever.

Most career outs (10,328)

With the volume of times Rose came to the plate, it’s probably not a big surprise he made more outs than anyone else in history. As with the other Pete Rose records on this list, “outs” is not close — he leads Aaron by nearly 1200.

Most career games played (3562)

Pete has the lead on Carl Yastrzemski by more than 250 games, but Yaz made all of those appearances for just one team — the Boston Red Sox.

Amazing!

Most winning games played in during career (1972)

You play in the most games in your career, chances are you’re going to rank right up there in winning games, too.

Of course, Rose himself had a lot to do with that, and his teams locked down 1972 victories over his career.

Most career hits by a switch-hitter (4256)

Since Pete was a switch-hitter, he would have owned the record for all-time hits by a switch-hitter once he set the overall record, naturally.

But he actually took down Frankie Frisch‘s mark of 2880 way back in 1977, and Topps commemorated the event with a Record Breaker card (#6) in their 1978 base set.

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Most career runs by a switch-hitter (2165)

As you might expect, Rose holds most of the counting-type records among switch-hitters, outside of the power and speed categories (though he did manage 160 home runs and 198 stolen bases during his career).

Overall, he stands sixth in runs scored, first among switch-hitters.

Most career doubles by a switch-hitter (746)

Similarly, Rose is second on the doubles list (behind Tris Speaker) and first among switch-hitters.

Most career walks by a switch-hitter (1566)

Sounding familiar yet?

Rose is 14th in career bases on balls, but leads all switch-hitters.

Most career total bases by a switch-hitter (5752)

And, finally in our run of switch-hitting accomplishments, Pete Rose owns the ninth highest total bases count of all time, but he stands first among men who batted from both sides of the plate.

Most seasons, 200 or more hits (10)

In order to knock down the BIG career records in baseball, you have to be excellent, and you have to be excellent for a long, long time.

Rose combined durability and consistency better than most players in history, which manifested in records like his ten seasons of 200 or more hits.

Ichiro Suzuki tied that record in 2010, by the way, and — amazingly — Ichiro racked up his ten seasons all in a row … from 2001-2010!

For Rose, Topps marked the occasion of his tenth 200-hit season in 1979 with a 1980 Topps Highlights card, number 4 in their base set that summer.

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Most consecutive seasons, 100 or more hits (23)

One hundred hits in a season is not that big a deal — 181 different players hit that target in 2019, after all.

But do it each season for 23 summers in a row? Yeah, that’s definitely something special.

Rose is the only one to do it.

Most consecutive seasons, 600 or more at-bats (13)

Same type of thing here … play at a high level for a long time, stay healthy, and you’ll run up a ton of big-at-bat seasons.

Only Pete reached this level, though.

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Most seasons, 600 or more at-bats (17)

And that one up there was just for consecutive seasons with 600-plus at-bats (1968-80) — Pete tagged on four more for good measure (1963, 1965, 1966, 1981).

Most seasons, 150 or more games played (17)

You don’t ring up a ton of at-bats without playing in a lot of games, and Pete made it into 150 or more for 17 seasons — fell just short in 1967 and 1968, too.

Most seasons, 100 or more games played (23)

The only season Rose didn’t make it into at least 100 games was his last — 1986, with the Reds.

National League Records

Since Rose played his entire career in the National League, and since he’s the all-time hit leader, of course he’s also the National League leader for career hits.

In fact, that goes for all his Major League records listed above, so this section lists out the records Rose holds in the National League but for which his not also the overall all-time leader.

It’s worth noting, though, that Rose set the NL record for hits back in 1980, and that landed him a couple of special cards …

A 1982 Topps Highlight (#4) …

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And a 1982 Topps Kmart Highlight (#44) …

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Most years played (24)

There are other players who played some of their career in the National League and logged more than 24 years in total — Nolan Ryan, for example — but Rose is at the top of the heap when it comes to NL-only players.

Most consecutive years played (24)

So, Pete didn’t leave and come back. Most players don’t, but there are a few notable guys who did … Ryne Sandberg, Satchel Paige, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Willie Mays come to mind.

Not Rose, though, so years played=consecutive years played, and it’s a big number either way you look at it.

Most career doubles (746)

Rose finished 46 doubles behind Tris Speaker and 21 in front of Stan Musial — solidly in second place overall and first place among National Leaguers.

Most career games, 5 or more hits (10)

Five hits in a game is a lot. How’s that for stating the obvious?

Well, Pete did it ten times — more than anyone else, with Tony Gwynn next at nine games and then a bunch of other Hall of Fame types at seven.

Longest hitting streak (post-1900) – 44 games

In the summer of 1978, Rose lit the game on fire and set his sights on Joe DiMaggio‘s 56-game hitting streak.

Alas, Rose fell short, hitting safely in 44 straight games.

That puts him on the top of all National League streaks since 1900 but behind old-timer Wee Willie Keeler‘s 45-game haul split over two seasons (1896-97).

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Most hitting streaks of 20 or more games (7)

Let’s do a little bit more of the super-obvious stuff — getting a hit in 20 games in a row is hard to do.

Rose did that on seven different occasions, more than any other National Leaguer.

Other Stuff

Rose owns a couple of other marks that qualify as records but don’t line up quite as neatly as those above.

Among those are the fact that he made 17 All-Star appearances across five different positions — first base, second base, third base, right field, left field.

No one else ever did that.

Rose also played more than 500 games at each of those positions in his career.

No one else ever did that, either.

Also, according to Wikipedia …

Rose retired in 1986 with the highest modern-day career fielding percentage for a right fielder at 99.14% and the highest National League modern-day career fielding percentage for a left fielder at 99.07%

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And, of course, there are milestones, like 3000 hits, that didn’t make it into the cardboard realm at all because they didn’t set any sort of records … still amazing steps along the way, though.

So, yeah, the rundown of Pete Rose records is pretty impressive, and all those “mosts” and “bests” led to some pretty nifty baseball cards.

It’s all part of baseball’s storied history, no matter what you think of the man himself.

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Beyond cards, you can find all sorts of Pete Rose memorabilia on the market today, and some of it allows for some pretty customized collectibles. Take autographed baseballs, for example, which exist in any number of configurations where Charlie Hustle is concerned.

Check out our guide to finding Pete Rose signed baseballs right here.

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