Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred is considering a petition filed by the family of Pete Rose to have him posthumously reinstated from the league’s ineligible list, a league source confirmed to The Athletic. Manfred’s decision to consider the petition was first reported by ESPN.
Jeffrey Lenkov, a lawyer who represented Rose until his death on Sept. 30, 2024, met with Manfred and MLB spokesperson Pat Courtney, along with Rose’s daughter, Fawn Rose, on Dec. 17, according to a league source. Rose’s family filed the petition for reinstatement on Jan. 8. Lenkov told ESPN that the aim of the petition was to “seek induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame (for Rose), which had long been his desire and is now being sought posthumously by his family.”
Rose was placed on MLB’s ineligible list in August 1989 after an investigation by lawyer John M. Dowd found that Rose had gambled on 52 Cincinnati Reds games as the team’s manager.
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would posthumously pardon Rose, MLB’s all-time leader in hits with 4,256.
“Over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete PARDON of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “He never betted against himself, or the other team. He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in sports history.”
Trump didn’t specify what a pardon would be for; Rose was sentenced to five months in prison for submitting falsified tax returns in 1990.
(Photo of Pete Rose from 2016: Kirk Irwin / Getty Images)
