MLB’s controversial all-time hits king could have a shot at the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump said he planned to issue a “complete” pardon of Pete Rose “over the next few weeks,” ESPN reported that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is considering a petition filed by the family of 17-time All-Star in January that requested him to be removed from the sport’s ineligible list.
According to ESPN, lawyer Jeffrey Lenkov filed the petition after he and Rose’s daughter, Fawn, met with Manfred at the end of last year.
Rose, who died in September at 83, was placed on the list in 1989 after an investigation concluded that he bet on baseball while he was managing the Reds.
Two years later, the Hall of Fame voted to exclude members of the ineligible list.
Rose, whose 4,256 hits have not been surpassed, has never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot.
Rose, in the years following his placement on the ineligible list, has filed for reinstatement multiple times, first in 1992 before making pleas with both commissioners Bud Selig and Manfred.
In 2022, after Rose made another plea, Manfred made clear that his stance had not changed.
“I believe that when you bet on baseball, from Major League Baseball’s perspective, you belong on the permanently ineligible list,” Manfred said in November 2022, according to The Athletic. “When I dealt with the issue, the last time he applied for reinstatement, I made clear that I didn’t think that the function of that baseball list was the same as the eligibility criteria for the Hall of Fame. That remains my position. I think it’s a conversation that really belongs in the Hall of Fame board. I’m on that board, and it’s just not appropriate for me to get in front of that conversation.”
Manfred echoed those comments to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on the day of the 2023 All-Star Game.
“Pete Rose violated what is sort of rule one in baseball, and the consequences of that are clear in the rule, and we’ve continued to abide by our own rules,” the commissioner said.
After years of denying the findings of the gambling probe, Rose admitted to betting on baseball in 2004 in his autobiography “My Prison Without Bars.”
Trump did not specify what the pardon would include, but Rose served five months in prison for a 1990 tax evasion case.
“Baseball, which is dying all over the place, should get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday night.