Interesting news for baseball fans.
I grew up watching Pete Rose, probably the only baseball catcher who's name I can remember.
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I grew up watching Pete Rose, probably the only baseball catcher who's name I can remember.
Sources: Manfred reviewing bid to reinstate Rose
Commissioner Rob Manfred is considering a petition filed on Jan. 8 by Pete Rose's family to have MLB's all-time hit leader posthumously removed from baseball's ineligible list, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told ESPN Saturday.
Manfred mulling family's request to remove Rose from ineligible list
- Don Van Natta Jr.Mar 1, 2025, 07:15 PM ET
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."
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." . . . STORY CONTINUES AT ESPN LINK ABOVE