[horseofcourse]

I dont' think anyone would call rose the "best" hitter. Hitting wise you have a plethora to choose from...Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Lou Gehrig, Babe ruth, even Tony Gwinn were all better "hitters" than Rose. Rose was simply unique...in my opinion the best complimentary player of all time is how I would describe him. He was never even the best player on his own team in his entire career. When he came up...Frank Robinson was certainly the team's headliner...then in the big Red machine days I would certainly argue that Bench and Morgan were "better" players than him...and in his Phillie days, Mike Schmidt was certainly the headliner. It is certainly a shame what happened to him as I don't think there is a better example of anyone in any sport who got more out of himself than Pete Rose. HE has the most hits...but no way is he even arguably the best hitter. Certainly one of the best ever despite all that.