MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said Monday he will rule on a request to reinstate Pete Rose from the league’s ineligible list, a topic that recently came up in a conversation between Manfred and President Donald Trump.
Manfred did not say when he would issue a ruling. Rose’s family filed a petition to have him posthumously reinstated on Jan. 8.
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Manfred met with Trump, who said in February he would posthumously pardon Rose, on April 16 in the White House.
“I met with President Trump two weeks ago, I guess now, and one of the topics was Pete Rose, but I’m not going beyond that,” Manfred told reporters at a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors. “He’s said what he said publicly, I’m not going beyond that in terms of what the back and forth was.”
Rose, who died in September, accepted an agreement in 1989 that permanently placed him on baseball’s ineligible list after months of investigations into reports of him betting on the sport while playing for and managing the Cincinnati Reds. As part of the five-page agreement, the document also stated that MLB “will not make any formal findings” that Rose bet on baseball.
In 1991, Rose’s first year eligible to make the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Hall’s board approved a change in eligibility that players on MLB’s permanently ineligible list would also be ineligible for Cooperstown.
On Feb. 28, Trump posted on Truth Social that he planned to pardon Rose, and added that Rose “shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING.” In 1990, Rose pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns and served a five-month sentence, but it is not clear if Trump was suggesting that would be included within the pardon. Trump has not publicly addressed the topic of Rose’s status since.
Prior to January, Rose most recently applied for reinstatement in 2015, an appeal Manfred rejected in his first year as commissioner. Rose also applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with former commissioner Bud Selig in 2002, but Selig never issued a ruling.
Manfred said he and Trump also discussed how Trump’s immigration policies could affect players from Cuba, Venezuela and other countries.
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“Given the number of foreign-born players we have, we’re always concerned about ingress and egress,” Manfred told reporters Monday. “We have had dialogue with the administration about this topic. And, you know, they’re very interested in sports. They understand the unique need to be able to go back and forth, and I’m going to leave it at that.”
(Photo: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)
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