In March of this year, Pete Rose made a formal request to be reinstated to Major League Baseball, and new commissioner Rob Manfred agreed to meet with Rose and hear him out.
“I want to make sure I understand all of the details of the Dowd Report and Commissioner Bart Giamatti’s decision and the agreement that was ultimately reached,” Manfred said at the time. “I want to hear what Pete has to say, and I’ll make a decision once I’ve done that.”
Well according to a report today in the New York Times, Rob Manfred has decided not to lift the permanent ban imposed on Pete Rose more than a quarter-century ago.
“The decision by Mr. Manfred, who succeeded Bud Selig as commissioner last January, has not been publicly announced. But three people familiar with the decision, speaking on condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a matter that was supposed to remain confidential, said that Mr. Manfred had made up his mind to keep the ban intact.”
Rose, now 74, is baseball’s all-time leader in base hits and has been banned for over a quarter-century from MLB and thus barred from the Hall of Fame despite his stellar Cooperstown worthy career.
In 1989, M.L.B. concluded that Rose was betting on baseball games while managing the Cincinnati Reds and that some of the bets had been placed on his own team. After years of denial, he finally admitted in a 2004 autobiography that he bet on baseball and the Reds, although he insisted that he never bet on the Reds to lose.
Rose, a 17 time All Star, Rookie of the Year and MVP, ended his career with a record 4,256 hits and a lifetime .303 average. He led the league in hits seven times and won three batting titles including 1969 when he batted .348.
