Major League Baseball will not lift lifetime ban on Pete Rose

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has rejected former Cincinnati Reds great Pete Rose’s plea for reinstatement, saying baseball’s hits king hasn’t been completely honest about his gambling on games while serving as a player and manager.

In the report, Manfred said Rose informed him at the September meeting that he continues to bet on baseball, which he can legally do in Las Vegas, where he lives.

However, according to Manfred’s three-page written decision, he didn’t have the evidence to support changing the status quo.

In July, Rose was honored prior to the MLB All-Star Game in Cincinnati and received a long standing ovation as he joined Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Barry Larkin in being voted by fans as Cincinnati’s “Franchise Four”.

“Pete’s fall from grace is without parallel, but he recognizes that it was also of his own making”, Genco and Rosenbaum said. Rose had previously denied ever betting on baseball as a player. Manfred succeeded Selig in January, and Rose again applied to end the ban.

Rose didn’t publicly admit that he bet on baseball while actively involved with the league until the publication of his 2004 autobiography, Pete Rose: My Prison Without Bars.

Rose agreed in 1989 to the ban after an Major League Baseball investigation concluded he bet on games involving the Reds while managing and playing in the 1980s. Only there was one thing: Rose still bet on baseball.

Three months before the decision, Manfred met with Rose at Major League Baseball headquarters on Park Avenue in Manhattan to discuss the ban, which was enforced 26 years ago.

There’s no doubt Rose has the numbers to be in the Hall of Fame, of course.

Pete Rose… claiming it’s time for the Hall of Fame to finally LET THE GUY IN!!! “He demonstrated that right in front of commissioner Manfred, as he did in front of commissioner (Peter) Ueberroth, commissioner (Bart) Giamatti and commissioner (Fay) Vincent”. And he “made assertions concerning his betting habits that were directly contradicted by documentary evidence” – the betting notebook, Manfred said.

If Rose were reinstated by baseball, it would mean that he could be hired by an MLB team, perhaps as a hitting coach or a manager or a special assistant to the GM. He had 4,256 hits throughout his career, more than any other player.