NEW YORK — Thirteen years after he was banned from baseball and five years after his application for reinstatement was ignored, Pete Rose believes the game he once dominated has turned its back on him permanently.

        “In the world of baseball, I'm dead unless they need me,” he said Thursday after signing autographs in a Midtown sporting goods store. “In 1999, when I made the All-Century Team, they needed me.”

        Rose participated in ceremonies on the field during the World Series that year. Since then, nothing.

        “They won't call on me until they need me,” he said. “They're hypocrites.”

        Rose was cordial with fans, posing for pictures and signing posters.

        Then somebody mentioned former commissioner Fay Vincent's book, to be published in October, in which Vincent talks about Rose's transgressions.

        “Finally,” the former commissioner writes, “there are baseball betting slips with Rose's handwriting and fingerprints on them.”

        Rose bristled at that.

        “Show me the slips,” Rose said. “Show me the phone records. Show me the fingerprints. That's Fay Vincent. He wants to live in the past.”

        Rose remains bitter at Vincent and attorney John Dowd, whose investigation led to his banishment from baseball.

        “They're the guys who got fired from baseball,” he said. “Why did they get fired?”

        Rose supported commissioner Bud Selig's decision to end the All-Star Game as a 7-7 tie after 11 innings when teams ran out of players.

        But Rose, who bowled over catcher Ray Fosse in 1970 to score the winning run for the National League in the bottom of the 12th inning, said players still must play to win.

        “I believe if I'm playing in a game and there are 50,000 people who pay to see it, my obligation is to win the game,” Rose said.

Reds 7, Pirates 5 Reds Box, Runs Boone hopes chats change struggling players Reds Notebook: Larson on the spot Pirates give Reds credit Reds-Mets Series Preview Rose: 'I'm dead to baseball' Rochester 8, Louisville 6 Cardinals 5, Giants 1 Padres 4, Dodgers 1 Athletics 2, Angels 0 Mariners 5, Rangers 3

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