Pete Rose might have a chance in Cooperstown after all.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said he discussed the all-time hit king with President Donald Trump two weeks ago and plans to rule on his permanent ban soon.
Rose, a three-time World Series winner, died in September at the age of 83, and Trump has since urged Manfred to reverse the 17-time All-Star’s permanent gambling ban imposed by then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1989.
Speaking at an Associated Press Sports Editors meeting on Monday, Manfred stated that he and Trump had discussed several issues, including Manfred’s concerns about how Trump’s immigration policies might affect players from Cuba, Venezuela, and other foreign countries.
Manfred is considering a posthumous petition to have Rose removed from the MLB’s permanently ineligible list. The petition was filed in January by Jeffrey Lenkov, a Southern California lawyer who represented Rose before the 17-time All-Star died at the age of 83.
‘I met with President Trump two weeks ago, I guess now, and one of the topics was Pete Rose, but I’m not going any further,’ Manfred stated. ‘He said what he said publicly, and I’m not going to elaborate on what the back and forth was.’
On February 28, Trump wrote on social media that he intends to issue ‘a complete PARDON of Pete Rose.’ Trump stated on Truth Social that Rose’shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING.’
It’s unclear what a presidential pardon would entail — Trump made no mention of a tax case in which Rose pleaded guilty in 1990 to two counts of filing false tax returns and served a five-month prison sentence.
The president stated that he would sign a pardon for Rose ‘over the next few weeks’ but has not addressed the issue since.
Even weeks before his death in September, Rose was still hoping for a’second chance’ in the sport.
‘There is nothing I can do to change Pete Rose’s history,’ he told Los Angeles television station KTLA in an interview published on September 7.
‘I keep convincing or telling myself, ‘Hang in there, Pete, you’ll get another chance.”
‘This is the only country that gives you a second chance,’ Rose explained. ‘I keep hoping that someday I’ll get a second chance, and I won’t need a third.
In addition to his betting scandal, Rose was recently accused of having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a minor in the 1970s.
Rose had 4,256 hits and holds the records for games (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890). He was the 1973 National League MVP and a member of three World Series championship teams.
According to an MLB investigation led by lawyer John M. Dowd, Rose bet on the Cincinnati Reds to win numerous times between 1985 and 1987 while playing for and managing the team. Rose and the MLB agreed on a permanent ban in 1989.
Lenkov wants Rose reinstated so that he can be considered for the Hall of Fame. According to a rule adopted by the Hall’s board of directors in 1991, anyone on the permanently ineligible list is ineligible for election to the organization.
Rose applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with Commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never acted on her request. In 2015, Manfred denied Rose’s application for reinstatement.
Manfred stated that reinstating Rose now was “a little more complicated than it might appear on the outside,” but did not commit to a timeline, saying only that “I want to get it done as soon as we get the work done.”
‘I’m not going to give this my pocket veto,’ he stated. ‘I will issue a ruling.’
Rose’s reinstatement does not guarantee he will appear on a Hall of Fame ballot. He would need to be nominated by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and approved by the Hall’s board. Manfred is an ex-officio member of the board and says he has regular contact with chairman Jane Forbes Clark.
‘Believe me, there’s a lot of Hall of Fame talk on this one,’ Manfred said.
If reinstated, Rose could be placed on a ballot for consideration by the Classic Baseball Era committee, which has 16 members, in December 2027.
Manfred also stated that baseball’s current ties to legal sports betting should not influence public opinion on Rose’s case.
‘There is and always has been a clear demarcation between what Rob Manfred, an ordinary citizen, can do and what someone who has the privilege to play or work in Major League Baseball can do in terms of gambling,’ he stated. ‘I don’t think the fact that the law changed affects the fact that we sell data and/or sponsorships to sports betting enterprises, which is essentially all we do.
It’s an honor to play Major League Baseball. As with all privileges, there are responsibilities. One of their responsibilities is to not bet on the game.
Manfred did not go into detail about his conversation with Trump about foreign-born players, other than to say he expressed concern.
‘Given our number of foreign-born players, we’re always concerned about ingress and egress,’ Manfred said. ‘We spoke with the administration about this. And, you know, they’re big sports fans. They understand the unique need to be able to move back and forth, and I’ll leave it at that.
