Now that Pete Rose has been formally reinstated by Major League Baseball, hopefully somebody other than Commissioner Rob Manfred will choose to do the right thing and keep him out of the Hall of Fame.
By betting on games in which he played and managed, Rose broke MLB’s Rule 21 and was banned for life in 1989. Rose cheated Major League Baseball. He cheated the teams he played for and managed. Rose cheated the fans. He also cheated the Hall of Fame.
Manfred accepted this, because whenever Rose tried to appeal his ban while he was alive, Manfred replied: “I believe that when you bet on baseball, from Major League Baseball’s perspective, you belong on the permanently ineligible list.”
No matter. Rose officially gained back his eligibility Tuesday when Manfred announced that anyone on MLB’s permanently ineligible list who had died was finished serving their ban and was hereby reinstated. This also includes, most notably, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and seven of his teammates from the 1919 Chicago White Sox. In all, 17 persons have been reinstated.
Rose’s family filed an appeal with Manfred some time after Rose died in September at age 83. Manfred met personally with Rose’s daughter, Fawn, to talk about the possibility of reinstating her father. Manfred also met with President Trump, at his request, to discuss what happens now with Rose.
In a response to Rose’s attorney, Manfred said Tuesday:
“[O]nce an individual has passed away, the purposes of Rule 21 have been served. Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game. Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve.”
One way Rose can continue to harm the game is to celebrate his career with a Hall of Fame induction and plaque in Cooperstown and make it seem like all of the harm he caused never happened. That’s what Manfred has set in motion: a party for Pete Rose.
MLB in recent seasons has taken to occasionally punishing players who abuse others off the field, be it domestic violence, sexual assault or child abuse. Rose has been accused of statutory rape of a girl who was 14 or 15 years old at the time. Rose’s response: “It was 55 years ago, babe.” This is the guy whose legacy Manfred is bending over backward to protect.
Manfred claims to be impartial and dispassionate about Rose getting into the Hall, but from a practical matter, it’s not true at all. Is he doing this because of the short-term revenue stream a viable Rose candidacy for the Hall of Fame would bring? Is this about a little money? A little foot traffic in Cooperstown to make up for what Rose himself took away?
Even so, it should be important for Manfred to emphasize that ballplayers shouldn’t bet on games, particularly with the historically recent shift for MLB to partner with gambling sites. Encouraging fans to gamble on MLB is questionable enough, but easing up on someone like Rose is just plain reckless. “Oh, we’ll ban you from the sport while you’re alive if you bet, but we’ll still celebrate your legacy after you’re gone.”
Even worse, the forgiveness of the Black Sox players sends the message that you can conspire to fix the World Series — to lose on purpose in exchange for money — and have MLB protect your legacy by making you eligible for the Hall of Fame. It’s madness.
The meetings with Rose’s family and the president might make it seem like this was a recent decision, but MLB has had Rose’s reinstatement in the works for some time. They just didn’t come out and say it until now. MLB changed the status of deceased players at least five years ago. ESPN reported this change in January 2020, quoting a highly placed source as saying that the league had no hold on banned players after they die.
“From our perspective, the purpose of the ineligible list is a practical matter,” the source told ESPN. “It’s used to prevent someone from working in the game. When a person on the ineligible list passes away, he’s unable to work in the game. And so for all practical purposes, we don’t consider a review of the status of anyone who has passed away.”
It means that Jackson, along with others who have been dead for decades, have had no barriers to the Hall of Fame, except for voters on committees who could review their Cooperstown cases. It’s hard to imagine someone MLB believed threw the World Series being rewarded, even posthumously, with a Hall of Fame induction. It could happen soon.
Rose has died, yet he continues to embarrass and do harm to MLB just as he did while banned. Once his name appears on a 16-person Hall of Fame review committee in 2027, perhaps enough of them will do the right thing and keep the barbarian on the right side of the gate.
