The reason why baseball great Pete Rose died has been found.
The Cincinnati Reds told USA TODAY Sports that Rose died on Monday at the age of 83. He was the MLB’s all-time hits leader and was banned from baseball in 1989 for betting on Reds games while he was manager.
The Clark County (Nevada) Coroner’s Office told The Cincinnati Enquirer, which is part of the USA TODAY Network, that Rose died of high blood pressure and fatty heart disease.
According to the Mayo Clinic, hypertension, or high blood pressure, makes the heart work harder to pump blood because the blood is pressing on the walls of the arteries.
Atherosclerosis, on the other hand, is a heart disease where plaque builds up and stops blood flow.
Rose last showed up in public on Sunday at the Music City Sports Collectibles and Autograph Show in Nashville, Tennessee. He died Monday at his home in Las Vegas.
Rose was seen in a wheelchair at the show, where he met up with old teammates Dave Concepcion, George Foster, Tony Perez, and Ken Griffey Sr.
“Amazing that they all got to see each other one last time,” the collectibles company wrote under the picture of the five performers.
Johnny Bench, another Reds great, said on “The Dan Patrick Show” on Tuesday that he went to the collectibles show on Saturday and almost met up with Rose again on Sunday.
Even though Bench hadn’t seen Rose, he said he was worried about him because his friends were worried about his health.
“The guys were very concerned about him on Sunday because they said he just wasn’t the same old Pete,” he said. “That’s sad.” It’s really that.”
During his divorce proceedings in 2018, Rose said that he was “currently disabled and can barely walk or travel.” In court papers, Rose’s lawyers said that his “health is deteriorating” and that he was taking blood thinners and had three heart surgeries in five years.