The Major League baseball season begins this week and the man with more hits than any other player in the game’s history – Pete Rose -- is not in the Baseball Hall-of-Fame.

Rose was banished for life from baseball in 1989 for gambling on his own team.

Best-selling author Keith O’Brien has written a new book, Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose and the Last Glory Days of Baseball. It may be the definitive biography of a man who was one of the all-time greats and most admired players on the baseball field -- but off the field, lived a life of controversy, chaos and that may have ruined or at least had a negative impact on other people’s lives along the way.

O'Brien appeared on The Spark Wednesday where he described Rose as an American success story in many people's eyes -- someone who wasn't a great athlete, but through sheer determination and grit, made himself into the most prolific hitter in baseball history. Rose was known for his ferocity and hustle on the field, doing whatever it took to win and be successful as a player.

O'Brien added that Rose had that same ferocity off the field, in his private life, that led to recklessness, two marriages, multiple affairs with women, cavorting with criminals and gambling.

It was Rose's gambling on the Cincinnati Reds that he managed at the time that led then Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti to ban Rose from the game.

The question that often arises today about Rose is whether he should be enshrined in Baseball's Hall-of-Fame. Spark listeners (a small sample size), who commented on the question, were nearly unanimous that Rose should be in the Hall. O'Brien doesn't take a position in the book but said on The Spark that he agrees with one of the commenters that said Rose should be in the Hall-of-Fame for his on-field performance, but with his gambling transgressions mentioned on his plaque.

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