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The controversy surrounding all-time MLB hits leader Pete Rose has continued after his death. Rose famously received a lifetime ban from baseball for betting on games. This endless ineligibility has, and will continue, to prevent Rose from being inducted in the MLB Hall of Fame. The former NL MVP most recently made his case for inclusion in Cooperstown last year, just two months before he passed away in September 2024 at the age of 83.
Now, Rose is in the news again as president Donald Trump announced his intention to issue a posthumous pardon of Charlie Hustle, adding that he believes Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame, according to Yahoo Sports on X.
“Over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete pardon of Pete Rose, who shouldn't have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on his team winning… He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in sports history,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
Will Trump pardon help Pete Rose’s posthumous MLB HoF chances?
While it’s frankly unlikely that Rose “only bet on his team winning,” he never admitted to betting against the Cincinnati Reds. Of course, Rose also denied ever gambling on baseball while employed by MLB. From his initial banishment in 1989 until he wrote an autobiography in 2004, Rose steadfastly dismissed the notion that he bet on games.
After eventually admitting to gambling on baseball when he managed the Reds, he then waited another 11 years before acknowledging that he bet on games as a player. But he went to his grave denying that he ever picked his team to lose.
Trump is correct, however, on Rose’s accomplishments in baseball. He’s MLB’s all-time hit king with 4,256 base hits over a 24-year career. Rose was a 17-time All-Star and a three-time World Series champ. He won league MVP in 1973 and World Series MVP in 1975. Without the ban, Rose would have been a first ballot Hall of Famer.
Still, it’s difficult to see how a pardon from Trump will change Rose’s fortunes. He did serve five months in jail for tax evasion in 1990. But that wasn’t keeping him out of Cooperstown.
Rose had multiple opportunities to get reinstated by MLB during his lifetime. Commissioner Bart Giamatti (who was actor Paul Giamatti’s dad) left the door open for Rose to get back into baseball’s good graces. But consistently lying about gambling for so many years eroded any good will Rose may have had.
In 2022, Rose reached out to commissioner Rob Manfred. While Manfred stood by Rose’s lifetime ban, he offered a unique take on the Hall of Fame issue, stating that being ineligible shouldn’t necessarily prevent a player from induction into the HoF.
For those readers who may not remember, Donald Trump was president previously. He was in office from 2017-2021, back when Pete Rose was still alive. Why Trump is pardoning Rose at all is a bit baffling. But waiting until after Rose died is particularly confounding.
