MLB commissioner Rob Manfred on Pete Rose: 'I got another application. I'll deal with it'
Pete Rose holds his place marker during a ceremony to honor the 1976 World Series champion Reds in Cincinnati on June 24, 2016. Credit: AP/John Minchillo
ORLANDO, Fla. — Pete Rose probably shouldn’t wait by the phone.
Rose, permanently banned from baseball by then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1989, earlier this week sent a petition to commissioner Rob Manfred for reinstatement.
“I haven’t even read the application for reinstatement for I’m sure reasons that has more to do with you folks than me,” Manfred said at the end of the owners meetings at the Waldorf Astoria Orlando. “They decided to send it during the owners meetings, so I haven’t even had a chance to read it so I can’t really give you a reaction to it. I just don’t know what he said.”
According to ESPN, what Rose and his lawyers said in the 20-page petition is that the all-time hits leader’s ban is “vastly disproportionate” compared with the scandals that have rocked the sport in the time that he’s been out of baseball. The petition used the recent Astros sign-stealing scandal — in which no players were disciplined — and the vast use of performance-enhancing drugs during the so-called Steroid Era as examples.
“There cannot be one set of rules for Mr. Rose and another for everyone else," the petition stated, according to 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."
Manfred rejected Rose’s last petition for reinstatement in 2015 as his predecessor, Bud Selig, did before that.
“I think that the process that baseball’s generally adhered to is if you’re on that list, you have the right, periodically, to apply for reinstatement,” Manfred said, not at all sounding particularly enthusiastic. “I got another application. I’ll deal with it.”
As long as Rose, 78, is on the ineligible list, he cannot appear on the ballot for consideration for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, a decision made by the Hall with Rose in mind in 1991.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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