Pete Rose meets with Rob Manfred; decision on reinstatement expected by end of 2015

Pete Rose has made his case for reinstatement with commissioner Rob Manfred, who promised a decision by the end of December. Major League Baseball said the meeting with the career hits leader and his representatives took place Thursday at baseball's headquarters in New York.

Then Cincinnati's manager, Rose agreed in 1989 to a lifetime ban from baseball after an investigation for MLB by lawyer John Dowd concluded that Rose bet on games involving the Reds while managing and playing.

Rose applied for reinstatement in September 1997 and met with commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never ruled on it.

Rose, 74, repeatedly denied betting on baseball until he reversed his stand in his 2004 autobiography, "Pete Rose: My Prison Without Bars," and acknowledged he bet on the Reds while managing the team.

At the time the ban agreement was announced, then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti said, "The burden is entirely on Mr. Rose to reconfigure his life in a way he deems appropriate."

The Hall of Fame's board of directors voted in 1991 to ban those on the permanently ineligible list from the Baseball Writers' Association of America ballot. Since Rose's last year of BBWAA ballot eligibility would have been 2006, the impact of reinstatement on his Hall chances is not clear. -- AP