MLB ban lifted on Pete Rose, Joe Jackson
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday removed Pete Rose, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and other deceased players from Major League Baseball's permanently ineligible list.
The all-time hit king and Jackson – both longtime baseball pariahs stained by gambling – are now eligible for election into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Manfred determined that MLB's punishment of banned players ends upon their deaths.
"Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game," Manfred wrote in a letter to attorney Jeffrey M. Lenkov, who petitioned for Rose's removal from the list Jan. 8. "Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve. Therefore, I have concluded that permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual, and Mr. Rose will be removed from the permanently ineligible list."
While Manfred's decision is separate from Hall of Fame voting, it does make Rose eligible for Hall of Fame consideration as soon as December 2027. The news was first reported by ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr.
Rose, the all-time hits leader with 4,256 hits, in 1989 accepted an agreement with commissioner Bart Giamatti to be placed on the ineligible list after the commissioner’s office spent months investigating his betting on baseball while playing and managing the Cincinnati Reds.
For more on Pete Rose's career, go to https://highlandcountypress.com/opinions-rory-ryan/pete-rose-1941-2024-… and https://thepressboxlts.com/pete-rose-a-hall-of-fame-friend-who-slid-hea…
Hypothetical
That age old question, "What would you do first, if you were President for a day?" This has been my standard answer: My first action would be to pardon Pete Rose from that federal tax-evasion conviction. Hopefully opening the doors to the "more stringent, judgmental, and holier-than-thou" baseball writers' commission and the MLB commissioner. Then our current President Trump has pulled the strings that are totally in-sync with my, and millions of Americans', rational thoughts and wishes. Fair-minded middle Americans have suffered too much under the years of the coastal elites. If Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose are enshrined in the Hall, where they were supposed to be in the first place, under President Trump's initiation, then the opposition should also retain an open mind to all the other reforms our Country needs to resolve. Less spending, more common sense.