Rose, who at the time was Cincinnati’s manager, agreed in 1989 to the lifetime ban from baseball after an MLB investigation concluded that he bet on games involving the Reds while managing and playing.
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This is it for Pete Rose.
He’s dead to the game of baseball.
That likely means Rose will continue to pop up as a TV analyst like he did this October. “I live in Las Vegas because that’s where my job is”. I’m under control right now.
He can walk into Baseball’s Hall of Fame Museum as long as he lives, and, although he can see his memorabilia, he’ll never see his plaque.
Rose first applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with then-commissioner Bud Selig in 2002.
Manfred, in a ruling as transparent as possible, unveiled the facts in his case.
For nearly 15 years after being banned, Rose denied he bet on baseball. It came as no surprise at all.
For anyone in Manfred’s position or within his office to speak on the integrity of baseball is comparable to Larry King talking on the sanctity of marriage.
Actually, he was sitting so close to a Las Vegas street, one could hear motorcycles in the background as Rose held court Tuesday outside the Pete Rose Sports Bar & Grill on the Strip. “But he is a changed man. He is a repentant man. He is a man whose life is under control”.
He will be engaging, as always, and have most everyone holding a pen, tape recorder or camera captivated with his charm.
“It would be nice to have the opportunity to go to the Hall of Fame”, Rose said. I don’t know (Sammy) Sosa, but he was a great player. He also said he will consider allowing Rose to continue participating in on-field events related to baseball, as he did during the All-Star game in Cincinnati in July.
“I think I can teach lots of people not to make same mistakes I made, to learn from my situation”, he said.
Rose has had a wary relationship with both truth and limits ever since he was banned in 1989.
Rose passed Ty Cobb as career hits leader with No. 4,192 on September 11, 1985, and he finished his career with 4,256 hits. And he also said that he “wanted to be friends with baseball”.
“Mr. Rose’s public and private comments, including his initial admission in 2004, provide me with little confidence that he has a mature understanding of his wrongful conduct, that he has accepted full responsibility for it, or that he understands the damage he has caused”, Manfred wrote. “He claims not to remember significant misconduct detailed in the Dowd Report and corroborated by Michael Bertolini’s betting notebook….”
Rose was contrite a day after baseball, for all intent and purposes, closed the door a final time on the all-time hit king’s pursuit of reinstatement. Rose’s career is obviously Hall of Fame worthy.
Pete Rose is honored prior to the 2015 MLB All Star Game at Great American Ball Park.
Despite the ban, Rose can continue to make appearances in ceremonial Major League Baseball activities. In the meantime, he’s turning his attention to the Hall of Fame.
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He just won’t be reinstated into baseball. “It is the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Saints”.
