The batting gloves Cincinnati Reds first baseman Pete Rose wore while breaking Major League Baseball's career hits record, passing Ty Cobb, have sold for $78,000 via auction house Huggins & Scott, a subsidiary of Robert Edward Auctions.
The sum paid for Rose's record-setting gloves is believed to be a record for a pair of game-used batting gloves.
Rose's 4,192nd hit came Sept. 11,1985, at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium off the San Diego Padres' Eric Show. A Padres executive who was friends with Rose asked longtime announcer Jerry Coleman for a ticket stub from the game. Coleman, also a friend of Rose's, visited him in the locker room to congratulate him after he broke the record.
"Pete, you've got to give me something from tonight," Coleman said to Rose, who asked if the batting gloves would do and agreed to autograph them. Rose signed each glove on the back side of the hand, adjacent to the thumb, "Pete Rose 9-11-85." The executive kept them in his personal collection for four decades before consigning them to Huggins & Scott.
The executive later created a plaque that reads: These are the Mizuno batting gloves I used on September 11, 1985 when I got the 4,192nd hit of my career which broke Ty Cobb's all-time base hit record, and Rose later signed the plaque in red marker.
The gloves have been photo-matched by Sports Investors Authentication (SIA Photo Match) to the record-breaking game.
Rose, who was banned from baseball in August 1989 for betting on the game, died last September at age 83.
A 17-time All-Star who played on three World Series winners, he was the National League MVP in 1973 and the World Series MVP two years later. He holds the major league record for games played (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890) and holds the NL record for the longest hitting streak (44 games). He was the leadoff man for one of baseball's most formidable lineups with the Reds' championship teams of 1975 and 1976, with teammates who included Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan.
In May, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred removed Rose and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson from the league's list of permanently ineligible players.