MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said he discussed Pete Rose‘s case with Donald Trump at a meeting two weeks ago, and for now plans to rule on the request to lift the permanent suspension against the all-time hits leader, who died last September.
In a meeting with Associated Press on Monday, Manfred said he and Trump have discussed a number of issues, including his concern about how Trump’s immigration policies could affect players from Cuba, Venezuela and other countries.
Manfred is considering a request for Rose to be posthumously removed from MLB’s permanently ineligible list. The petition was filed in January by Jeffrey Lenkov, a Southern California attorney who represented Rose before his death 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 to go into detail,” Manfred said. “He has said what he said publicly, I’m not going to go into details about the exchange of views.”
Trump’s request for Pete Rose’s reinstatement
On February 28, Trump posted on social media that he planned to grant a full pardon to Pete Rose. On Truth Social, Trump posted that Rose “shouldn’t have bet on baseball, but only that HIS TEAM WOULD WIN”.
It is unclear what the presidential pardon would include; Trump did not specifically mention 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 said he would sign the pardon for Rose “in the next few weeks”, but has not referred to the matter again.
Rose collected 4,256 hits and also holds the records for games (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890); he was the National League MVP in 1973 and played on three World Series-winning teams.
An investigation for MLB, conducted by attorney John M. Dowd, revealed that Rose placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win between 1985 and 1987, while playing and managing the team. Rose agreed to a lifetime ban from MLB in 1989.
Lenkov is seeking Rose’s reinstatement so that he can be considered for the Hall of Fame. Under a rule adopted by the Hall’s board of directors in 1991, anyone on the permanently ineligible list cannot be considered for election to the Hall.
Rose applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never ruled on Rose’s application. In 2015, Manfred denied Rose’s application for reinstatement.
Manfred said reinstating Rose now was “a little more complicated than it appears on the surface” and would not commit to a timetable, except that “I want to get it done promptly, as soon as we finish the work.”
“I’m not going to veto this,” he said. “In fact, I will issue a decision.”
Rose’s reinstatement does not mean he automatically appears on the Hall of Fame ballot. He would first have to be nominated by the Hall’s Historical Review Committee, elected by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and approved by the Hall’s board of directors.
Manfred is an ex officio member of that board and says he has been in regular contact with chairwoman Jane Forbes Clark.
If reinstated, Rose could be considered for inclusion on the ballot to be considered by the 16-member Baseball Classic Era committee in December 2027.
Manfred added that he does not believe baseball’s current ties to legal sports betting should influence opinion on Rose’s case.
Manfred’s concern about migration policies
Manfred did not go into detail about his conversation with Trump about foreign-born players, except to express his concern.
“Given the number of foreign-born players we have, we’re always concerned about ins and outs,” Manfred said. “We’ve had conversations with the administration on this topic. And as you know, they’re very interested in sports. They understand the unique need to be able to exchange views, and I’ll leave it at that.”
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