The Hit King was impressed. Three time zones away in Las Vegas, Pete Rose watched all nine innings as the newest member of the 3,000th-hit club — of his club — put on a show this weekend.

Rose has only met Derek Jeter once, at an autograph show years ago, but he watches and admires him from afar. No one, including Jeter himself, thinks the Yankee captain will challenge his all-time hit record.

But Rose? He wants to see Jeter try. He said if anybody had to break a record that he spent his entire career chasing, it might as well be someone who approaches the game the same way he did.

“We’re happy to have him in the 3,000-hit club,” Rose said in a phone interview with The Star-Ledger last night. “I just hope I live long enough to welcome him into the 4,000-hit club someday.”

This, of course, is the new reality for Jeter. He invested so much energy in reaching 3,000 hits, admitting that he felt tremendous pressure to get the milestone hit at home, but he’ll soon discover that people don’t stop counting. Now everyone will want to know how high he can go.

Jeter is 37, a week younger than Rose was when he cracked 3,000. The game has changed in 3,000 ways since then, but the man at the top isn’t ruling out a run into his territory.

"You never know," said Rose, who batted .302 the year he joined the club. "He's at the same age I was when I got my 3,000th hit. I was pretty fortunate to play a long time after that and had some pretty good years. I hope he's not slowing down. He'll just keep going up the ladder.

"It will be tough for him to get 4,000 hits," he said. "It was tough for me. But once you get on the side where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, it's not as tough as you think."

Rose is just being nice. It is every bit as tough as you think, and a glance at the bottom-heavy 3,000-hit club is evidence of that. Jeter already passed one member, Roberto Clemente, with his 3,001st hit. He’ll pass two more, Al Kaline and Wade Boggs, soon after the All-Star break, and likely another five members before the season ends.

So Jeter will move into the top 20 in a hurry. Passing Rose is something else entirely. He is 1,253 hits away. That is a career in itself, and the idea that Jeter would play well into his 40s — and maybe for another team — just to climb to the top of this list is unthinkable.

He doesn’t need this record to define his career the way it did — and still does — for Rose. Rose spends 15 days a month in Las Vegas at Mandalay Place now, signing autographs and talking to fans who still feel a connection to the man who spent 22 years chasing down Ty Cobb.

His website, PeteRose.com, has a photo of him from the day he broke Cobb's record in 1985, tipping his batting helmet and pointing to the fans. Rose is defined by a number — 4,256 — the way few in the sport's history are.

“I never retired and that’s because of guys like Jeter,” Rose said, “because if he gets to 4,257, I’m coming back to get one more hit!”

He laughed, which is easy to do for the man at the top. Rose, now 70, follows baseball as closely as anyone, so he knows his number is probably safe — not just from Jeter, but for eternity.

Just reaching 3,000 hits will become a rarity in a sport that now puts an emphasis on long at-bats and reaching base. Four-thousand? That’ll look like Cy Young’s 511 pitching wins someday.

Jeter was asked about the possibility before he even reached 3,000 and started to do the math.

“You talk about 200 hits (in a season), you’d have to have another five years to get that extra 1,000,” he said. “You’re talking about a long, long time. I’m not going to say never, but it’s not something on my mind.”

Rose, for one, hopes Jeter changes his mind. The man exiled from baseball for betting on the game has plenty in common with the Yankees’ poster boy, from the desire to play every day, to the respect from his teammates, to the focus on winning above everything else.

And, of course, the one thing that links them more than anything else: Getting hits. Jeter may never chase down Rose, but no matter what, he has an admirer in the man at the top of this list.

“I would love to talk to him because his philosophy is the same as mine, and it’s a very simple philosophy,” the Hit King said. “See the ball and hit the damn thing.”

Steve Politi: spoliti@starledger.com; Twitter.com/StevePoliti