MLB commissioner reveals secret talks with Donald Trump on posthumous Pete Rose reinstatement

Pete Rose might have a chance at Cooperstown after all. 

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said he discussed the all-time hit king with President Donald Trump at a meeting two weeks ago and he plans to rule on his permanent ban in the near future. 

Rose, a three-time World Series winner, died at 83 in September and Trump has since urged Manfred to reverse the permanent gambling ban handed down to the 17-time All-Star by then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1989. 

Speaking Monday at a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors, Manfred said he and Trump have discussed several issues, including Manfred’s concerns over how Trump’s immigration policies could impact players from Cuba, Venezuela and other foreign countries.

Manfred is considering a petition to have Rose posthumously removed from MLB’s permanently ineligible list. The petition was filed in January by Jeffrey Lenkov, a Southern California lawyer who represented Rose prior to the 17-time All-Star’s death at age 83.

‘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 said. ‘He’s said what he said publicly, I’m not going beyond that in terms of what the back and forth was.’

Trump posted on social media February 28 that he plans to issue ‘a complete PARDON of Pete Rose.’ Trump posted on Truth Social that Rose ‘shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING.’ It’s unclear what a presidential pardon might include — Trump did not specifically mention a tax case in which Rose pleaded guilty in 1990 to two counts of filing false tax returns and served a five-month prison sentence.

The president said he would sign a pardon for Rose ‘over the next few weeks’ but has not addressed the matter since.

Rose was still holding out hope for a ‘second chance’ in the sport just weeks before his death in September.

‘There’s nothing I can change about the history of Pete Rose,’ he told Los Angeles television station KTLA in an interview published on September 7.

‘I keep convincing myself or telling myself, ‘Hang in there, Pete, you’ll get a second chance.”

‘This is the one country that gives you a second chance,’ Rose added. ‘I continue to hope that someday I’ll get a second chance, and I won’t need a third.’

As well as his betting scandal, in recent years Rose was also accused of having an improper sexual relationship with a minor in the 1970s.

Rose had 4,256 hits and also holds records for games (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890). He was the 1973 National League MVP and played on three World Series winners.

An investigation for MLB by lawyer John M. Dowd found Rose placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985-87 while playing for and managing the team. Rose agreed with MLB on a permanent ban in 1989.

Lenkov is seeking Rose’s reinstatement so that he can be considered for the Hall of Fame. Under a rule adopted by the Hall’s board of directors in 1991, anyone on the permanently ineligible list can’t be considered for election to the Hall. Rose applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with Commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never ruled on Rose’s request. Manfred in 2015 denied Rose’s application for reinstatement.

Manfred said reinstating Rose now was ‘a little more complicated than it might appear on the outside’ and did not commit to a timeline except that ‘I want to get it done promptly as soon as we get the work done.’

‘I’m not going to give this the pocket veto,’ he said. ‘I will in fact issue a ruling.’

Rose’s reinstatement doesn’t mean he would automatically appear on a Hall of Fame ballot. He would first have to be nominated by the Hall’s Historical Overview Committee, which is picked by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and approved by the Hall’s board. Manfred is an ex-officio member of that board and says he has been in regular contact with chairman Jane Forbes Clark.

‘I mean, believe me, a lot of Hall of Fame dialogue on this one,’ Manfred said.

If reinstated, Rose potentially would be eligible for consideration to be placed on a ballot to be considered by the 16-member Classic Baseball Era committee in December 2027.

Manfred added he doesn’t think baseball’s current ties to legal sports betting should color views on Rose’s case.

‘There is and always has been a clear demarcation between what Rob Manfred, ordinary citizen, can do on the one hand, and what someone who has the privilege to play or work in Major League Baseball can do on the other in respect to gambling,’ he said. ‘The fact that the law changed, and we sell data and/or sponsorships, which is essentially all we do, to sports betting enterprises, I don’t think changes that. It’s a privilege to play Major League Baseball. As with every privilege, there comes responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is that they not bet on the game.’

Manfred did not go into details on his discussion with Trump over foreign-born players other than to say he expressed worry.

‘Given the number of foreign-born players we have, we’re always concerned about ingress and egress,’ Manfred said. ‘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.’