Pete Rose dismisses sexual misconduct questions at Phillies fete

Pete Rose dismissed questions Sunday about his first appearance on the field in Philadelphia since the franchise scrapped 2017 plans to honour him because of a woman's claim she had a sexual relationship with baseball's hit king when she was a minor.

"It was 55 years ago, babe," Rose told a female baseball writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Rose, though, had no trouble reminiscing about the 1980 World Series champion Phillies team — it was 42 years ago, Pete — that was honoured before Sunday's game.

The 81-year-old Rose received a standing ovation from Phillies fans — many not even born or too young to remember baseball's hit king in his prime — when he walked onto the Citizens Bank Park field for the first time since he received a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball in August 1989.

"They made me feel real good today," Rose said of the cheers. "I don't want to say I expected it. I guess I did expect it from Philly fans. That's the way they are. They love their sports heroes."

Rose's already stained reputation suffered another blow in 2017 when the Phillies called off a planned induction into the team's Wall of Fame because of the sexual misconduct accusations levied against him. Rose brusquely responded to the reporter's question before the game — and later apologized to her following Sunday's ceremony after initially saying, " will you forgive me if I sign 1,000 baseballs for you?" — and was just as combative on the topic after the pregame celebration.

"I'm going to tell you one more time: I'm here for the Philly fans, I'm here for my teammates, OK," Rose said. "I'm here for the Philly organization and who cares what happened 50 years ago."

The woman, identified as Jane Doe in 2017, said Rose called her in 1973,