Commissioner Rob Manfred is considering a petition filed on Jan. 8 by Pete Rose’s family to have Major League Baseball’s all-time hit leader posthumously removed from baseball’s ineligible list, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told ESPN on Saturday.
Jeffrey Lenkov, a Los Angeles lawyer who represented Rose prior to his death at age 83 in late September, said he filed the reinstatement petition after he and Fawn Rose, the oldest daughter of Pete Rose, met with Manfred and MLB spokesman Pat Courtney in the commissioner’s office on Dec. 17.
“The commissioner was respectful, gracious, and actively participated in productive discussions regarding removing Rose from the ineligible list,” Lenkov said of the one-hour meeting in the commissioner’s office. Lenkov said he is seeking Rose’s removal from MLB’s banned list for betting on baseball “so that we could seek induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, which had long been his desire and is now being sought posthumously by his family.”
Editor’s Picks
2 Related
MLB sources acknowledged the commissioner met with Fawn Rose and Lenkov and that Manfred is now reviewing the petition to reinstate Rose. In December 2015, Manfred rejected Rose’s reinstatement petition after meeting with Pete Rose. Manfred and Courtney declined to comment on Saturday.
Lenkov’s comments came a day after President Donald Trump said he would pardon Rose and criticized MLB for barring Rose from the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rose was banned from baseball for life by then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1989.
“Over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete pardon of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on his team winning,” Trump posted on social media. “He never betted against himself, or the other team. He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in history.” Although Trump did not say what the pardon would cover, Rose served five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges in 1990.
Lenkov said he had “not actively sought” the White House’s assistance in his efforts to seek reinstatement for Rose, which he said began years ago.
“When he gets passionate about an issue, POTUS stands behind it,” Lenkov said of Trump. “He was passionate about Pete. Pete would have appreciated the president’s commitment to him.”
Lenkov declined to release the petition that he sent to Manfred. But the petition describes “what Rose would have said honestly and candidly to commissioner Manfred, if he had been able to attend that meeting,” Lenkov said.
“It is now time to turn the page on Pete Rose’s legacy in baseball and for the Hall of Fame to honor him. Whether you are a fan or not of Pete Rose, we are at our best a nation of second chances, a nation of giving people second opportunities. We don’t write off people.”
Rose, who spent most of his 24-year career with the Cincinnati Reds, won the World Series three times and remains Major League Baseball’s career leader in hits, games played, at-bats, singles and outs. Rose often said no player had won more major league baseball games than him.
In a statement on Saturday to ESPN, John Dowd, who investigated Rose for gambling on baseball for MLB in 1989 and served as Trump’s lawyer seven years ago, noted that MLB is “not in the pardon business nor does it control admission to the HOF.”
In 2020, ESPN reported that for all practical purposes, commissioner Manfred viewed baseball’s banned list as punishing players during their lifetime but ending upon their death. A senior MLB source told ESPN then that after a banned player dies, MLB informally sees that the banning ends. When Manfred denied Rose’s petition for reinstatement, he said, “Under the Major League Constitution, my only concern has to be the protection of the integrity of play on the field through appropriate enforcement of the Major League Rules. It is not a part of my authority or responsibility here to make any determination concerning Mr. Rose’s eligibility as a candidate for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.”
In 1991, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, passed a rule declaring that any player ruled ineligible by Major League Baseball could not appear on a Hall of Fame ballot. This became known as the “Pete Rose rule,” because it closely followed the indefinite banning of Rose.
Rose has never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot. As Lenkov seeks a precedent-setting ruling by Manfred on Rose’s removal from the ineligible list, he said he hopes he can use it to persuade the Baseball Hall of Fame to allow baseball writers to vote for Rose’s induction.
In the past, Hall of Fame representatives have said that after a player dies — and he is still on the banned list — he still won’t be eligible for consideration for the Hall of Fame.
Rose had numerous opportunities to win reinstatement during his lifetime.
In the early 2000s, then-commissioner Bud Selig offered Rose a chance for reinstatement but insisted on conditions, including that Rose would have to admit he gambled on baseball, make no casino appearances and stop gambling. But Rose declined.
In 2004, Rose admitted in a book that he gambled as a manager of the Reds, but he insisted he only bet on his team to win. Years later, ESPN reported that Rose also placed bets as a player, but Rose wouldn’t admit it.
Lenkov said he is hopeful Manfred will reinstate Rose and that the Hall of Fame will allow Rose to be considered.
“Legally, the lifetime ban is over. His lifetime is over,” said Lenkov, who also was executive producer of the recent Pete Rose documentary on HBO. “The Hall of Fame has a rule that if you are on the ineligible list, you can’t be considered. If he is taken off that list, there’s still no guarantee he gets in. It’s a unique situation because he’s never been on a Hall of Fame ballot.
“But if he gets in, it’ll be a wonderful thing. Imagine the outpouring of emotion to go to the Hall of Fame when he’s formally inducted. And why not? As a lawyer and as an American, I believe in second chances. Pete Rose has had as long a prison sentence as any person could have ever imagined. Now is the time for Rose to get his second chance.”
