US president Donald Trump expressed his support on Saturday for former Cincinnati Reds star Pete Rose’s reinstatement to baseball.
ESPN reported Wednesday that Major League Baseball’s all-time hits leader was again petitioning baseball commissioner Rob Manfred to be removed from the permanently ineligible list, which would allow him to be considered for induction into the Hall of Fame.
Rose, 78, accepted a lifetime ban in 1989 after an investigation commissioned by MLB concluded he bet on games involving the Reds while he managed and played for the team.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted: “Pete Rose played Major League Baseball for 24 seasons, from 1963-1986, and had more hits, 4,256, than any other player (by a wide margin). He gambled, but only on his own team winning, and paid a decades long price. GET PETE ROSE INTO THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME. It’s Time!”
Pete Rose played Major League Baseball for 24 seasons, from 1963-1986, and had more hits, 4,256, than any other player (by a wide margin). He gambled, but only on his own team winning, and paid a decades long price. GET PETE ROSE INTO THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME. It’s Time!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2020
Rose applied for reinstatement in September 1997 and met with then-commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never ruled on Rose’s application. Manfred succeeded Selig in 2015, and Rose again applied unsuccessfully to end the ban.
The switch hitter nicknamed Charlie Hustle, who is also MLB’s all-time leader in games played (3,562) and at-bats (14,053), repeatedly denied betting on baseball until in his 2004 autobiography. But he subsequently reversed his stand and acknowledged he bet on the Reds while managing Cincinnati.
At the time the ban agreement was announced, then-Commissioner A Bartlett Giamatti said: “The burden is entirely on Mr. Rose to reconfigure his life in a way he deems appropriate.”
The Hall of Fame’s board of directors voted in 1991 to ban those on the permanently ineligible list from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot.
A 17-time All-Star, Rose was the 1963 NL Rookie of the Year, 1973 MVP and 1975 World Series MVP. 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.
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