Pete Rose applies to have MLB remove his lifetime ban
Former Cincinnati Red Pete Rose waves to the crowd as he is introduced on the field during a ceremony to honor the 1976 World Series championship team on June 24, 2016. Credit: AP/John Minchillo
The Astros’ sign-stealing scandal definitely relates to Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball, according to Pete Rose.
Rose formally petitioned again Wednesday — via a 20-page document sent to commissioner Rob Manfred — to be removed from Major League Baseball’s ineligible list, arguing that Manfred’s decision last month not to punish Astros players for their role in what MLB called a “player-driven” cheating scheme means Rose’s ban should end. Manfred did suspend Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch for one season.
"There cannot be one set of rules for Mr. Rose and another for everyone else," Rose and his lawyers said in the petition, which was obtained and made public by ESPN. "No objective standard or categorization of the rules violations committed by Mr. Rose can distinguish his violations from those that have incurred substantially less severe penalties from Major League Baseball.”
MLB is reviewing the petition, ESPN reported.
Rose’s plea also compares his punishment — “vastly disproportionate,” his lawyers wrote — to those applied to players who took performance-enhancing drugs. It specifically cites former Mets closer Jenrry Mejia, who was allowed back into baseball in July 2018, two years after earning a purported lifetime ban for three positive PED tests.
The majors’ all-time hits leader with 4,256, Rose was permanently banned in 1989 by then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti for betting on major league games, including those played by the Reds, whom Rose was playing for and managing at the time. He is also ineligible for induction to the Hall of Fame.
Rose, 78, has applied for reinstatement several times in the more than three decades since, most recently in 2015. Manfred said no because Rose had not “reconfigured” his life, in part because Rose continued to place bets — legally — on MLB games in Las Vegas (where Rose lives), ESPN reported.
Since then, sports betting has become more normalized, including legalized in several states. In November 2018, MLB struck a deal with MGM Resorts to make the resort/casino company its “official gaming partner.”
