No shot. No chance. No way. No how.
Pete Rose likes Derek Jeter, admires him and the way he plays the game, the way he gets his uniform dirty and runs out every ground ball. But baseball’s banished all-time hit king said there is no way he will have to abdicate his throne to make room for the Yankees captain.
“I don’t think he will break the record,” Rose said in an interview with Joe Posnanski for Sports on Earth. “First of all, I don’t think he wants to leave the Yankees. And the Yankees, they’re about winning.
“Jeter had a great year this year, but he’s what? Thirty-eight years old? And he’s a shortstop? How many 40-year-old shortstops you see walking around? Not too many, right?
“And they can’t put him at third because A-Rod’s there. They can’t put him at second ‘cause [Robinson] Cano’s there. He don’t help them in left field — he’s got to be in the center of things, you know what I mean? What are they going to do? Put him at first base?”
After getting 216 hits during the regular season, Jeter now has 3,304 for his career. Rose was 44 when he broke Ty Cobb’s major-league record with his 4,192nd hit in 1985. Rose retired the following year with 4,256 hits.
Conservatively, it would take 5 ¹/₂ seasons for the 38-year-old Jeter to get the 952 hits he needs to reach Rose’s mark. Don’t think for a minute Rose hasn’t done the math.
“He still needs 950 hits, right?” Rose said. “He had a great year this year, but you think he can do that again? At 39? A shortstop? Let’s say he does it again. Let’s say he gets 200 more hits next year. And let’s say he gets 200 more hits when he’s 40, though I don’t think he can. OK, can he get 200 more hits when he’s 41? You think he can?”
Rose then answered his own question.
“I don’t think he can get 200 more hits at 41, but let’s say he does. OK, now he’s 42. He’s gonna get 200 more hits then? At 42? Let me tell you, I’ve been there, the body locks up. Jeter’s a great hitter … but he’s gonna get 200 hits when he’s 42? I don’t think he will. And even if he does all that, he’s still 150 hits short.
“I’d say Jeter will probably end up in batting average about where I was [.303 vs. Jeter’s current .313 lifetime average]. … So if his average is around the same as mine, he has to get about as many at-bats as I did. I got 14,053 at-bats. What’s he got? Ten thousand? Eleven thousand? [Jeter has 10,551 at-bats]. … How’s he going to get 3,500 more at-bats? I think time’s running out.”
The 71-year-old Rose, who seems to watch a lot of Yankees games on television, also had praise for Alex Rodriguez.
“Do you ever see A-Rod not run out a ground ball?,” the man nicknamed Charlie Hustle asked. “Every time I see A-Rod play, I see a guy who runs it out. I see a guy who plays hard every game. People say all these things about the guy, but from where I’m sitting he plays the game hard. I don’t know what it is that some people want from a guy.”
dburke@nypost.com