Rose – who has more hits than anyone in the history of the game – will not have the permanent ban imposed on him in 1989 lifted, current Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced.
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Manfred wrote in his decision, “Allowing him to work in the game presents unacceptable risk of a future violation by him of Rule 21, and thus to the integrity of our sport”.
Manfred, in another part of his decision, wrote, “Mr. Rose has not presented credible evidence of a reconfigured life”.
The decision comes several months after Rose met with Manfred at Major League Baseball headquarters to discuss the possibility of reinstatement.
“Pete’s fall from grace is without parallel, but he recognizes that it was also of his own making”, Genco and Rosenbaum said. In 1991 the Hall of Fame ruled that no ineligible player could appear on a Hall of Fame ballot voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America.
John Dowd, who led the investigation into Rose’s gambling that led to the ban, said he supported Manfred’s decision, according to ESPN.
He originally applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with then-commissioner Bud Selig in 2002.
Rose didn’t publicly admit that he bet on baseball while actively involved with the league until the publication of his 2004 autobiography, Pete Rose: My Prison Without Bars.
The new information included a copy of a notebook that documented bets Rose made on games in the Reds’ 1986 season, in which Rose both played and managed.
But the bottom line is this: Pete Rose bet on baseball as a player and a manager.
The New York Times, which first reported the decision, said that Manfred hadn’t planning to tell Rose until Thursday, but the scoop report forced Manfred to contact Rose on Monday.
Rose repeatedly denied that he gambled on baseball after his original ban in 1989.
Former commissioner Fay Vincent thinks Rose should never be reinstated. But even if that happened, it’s hard to believe – considering what we’ve learned from Manfred’s report – that Rose would stop gambling.
Rose can still make ceremonial appearances, if Manfred permits, or work for third parties such as Fox; Rose served as an analyst this year.
Manfred said the polygraph results did not enter into his ruling. It wasn’t about Rose getting the type of cushy job that 4,256 hits would buy him, were he a normal player.
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Like him or hate him Pete Rose was a player who left it out on the field of play.
