After MLB commish Rob Manfred announced he would NOT overturn Rose’s lifetime ban for gambling on baseball…
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Most notably, Manfred said, was a notebook federal investigators obtained from Michael Bertolini in October 1989 that detailed “records of bets placed by Michael Bertolini on his own behalf and on behalf of Pete Rose, including bets placed on Cincinnati Reds games by Mr. Rose during the 1986 championship season when he was the player-manager for the Cincinnati Reds”.
Pete Rose before the MLB All-Star baseball game, Tuesday, July 14, …
He met with Manfred in September to discuss reinstatement. Rose, in the past, contended that he gambled on games only as the Reds manager in 1987.
On February 26, Rose’s attorneys advised Manfred of Rose’s request for reinstatement, saying that Rose had accepted responsibility for his mistakes and their consequences and that he was sorry for betting on baseball. There was also evidence, reported by ESPN earlier this year, that Rose also bet during his playing days.
Manfred called former Commissioner Fay Vincent on Monday to inform him of the decision.
This time, however, it was both gambling evidence and Rose’s failure to “present credible evidence of a reconfigured life” that Manfred cited in keeping Rose out of the game and, by extension, the Hall of Fame. This is a sad ending to a story that should have ended better for Pete Rose, the fans, and Major League Baseball.
The debate whether Rose belongs in the HOF has gone on for years. But Pete Rose may not yet realize that he’s also a compulsive liar who can play a lot of roles for his audience, but a sympathetic figure is not one of them. The ban has prevented him from appearing on the Hall of Fame ballot. “I’m proud of the commissioner for protecting the integrity of the game”. “He believed he was a great ballplayer, that he could do anything he wanted and that baseball would never have the guts to throw him out”.
Rose repeatedly denied betting on baseball until the release of his 2004 autobiography, “Pete Rose: My Prison Without Bars”.
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He said that Rose had met the standard put forth by Bart Giamatti who, during his brief tenure as MLB commissioner (he died a few months after taking office in 1989), helped negotiate Rose’s voluntary departure from baseball. A three-time NL batting champion, he had 4,256 hits from 1963-86, topping the mark of 4,191 set by Ty Cobb from 1905-28.
