Pete Rose in surprise announcement removed from ineligible list by MLB

All-time hits leader now can be considered for Hall-of-Fame

Is Pete Rose a Hall-of-Famer? By the time Rose became a member of the Montreal Expos at spring training of 1984, he was just hanging on for a run at the hits records that seemed inevitable, as long as he remained active and was able to play an everyday position with a major-league team. That team became the Expos.

What were those close encounters like? The second day at Expos training camp, Rose approached the team’s traveling secretary and suggested that the plush condo that he had been assigned at the PGA National property in Palm Beach Gardens (FL) was not going to work. Was it water damage, rodents, bed bugs, noisy neighbours? No, the problem was that Pete needed a bigger satellite dish. This was back in the day when size mattered and the condo he was in seemed unable to snag those late-night west coast pre-March madness, obscure conference college basketball games.

As the P.R. guy, I thought it was simply a case of Pete perhaps suffering from insomnia. But years later, I realized the truth, that it was more about the thrill of the bet, a challenge to replace his baseball obsession with others as his skills diminished.

Rose was forever playing the adrenaline angles of gambling. All the clues were there. After games against the Yankees in Ft. Lauderdale that spring, I would often go with veteran Montreal broadcaster Ron Reusch to watch that night’s standardbred card at Pompano Raceway, located basically across the parking lot from the Yankees rickety old spring stadium. Inevitably, Pete and his then-fiancee, Carol, would be in the dining room being hosted by the track’s owner. Home away from home.

Speaking of Carol, the Expos’ then-manager Bill Virdon in ‘84 had a team rule that wives were allowed to travel on team charters throughout the season. But it was only wives, no girlfriends or significant others. It was basically an excuse for Virdon to bring his own wife Shirley with him on the road. So, after opening the ’84 season in Houston, followed by his dramatic return with the Expos to Cincinnati, Rose got married at his agent’s house the morning of the final game, the travel day back to Montreal, it seems, in large part, to allow Carol to join him on all the road trips. Pete’s best friend was Expos second baseman Doug Flynn and Pete’s wife Carol and Doug’s wife Olga were close friend from their days as Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders.

Back then, as a young player trying to forge his own path, current Reds’ manager, Terry Francona appreciated Rose the teammate, even as the two men shared time between first-base and left field, looking for Rose’s comfort zone as his skills had clearly diminished. But he needed to keep playing because that was the promise.

“(Pete) was one of the best teammates you ever could have,” Francona said in a recent Griff’s Conversation. “He treated the young players like me and (Tim) Wallach and (Brad Mills) great. We would be on the plane playing cards with him. You could learn more baseball playing cards with Pete than, maybe, from coaches. The game was in slow motion for him.

“Then when he went back to Cincinnati to manage, he brough me over there (as a player) in ’87 and it’s one of my biggest regrets, ‘cuz I stunk that year. I made the team out of spring training as a non-roster. I got to play because guys were hurt. I felt like I had amnesia. I just forgot how to hit. It killed me, because I felt like I let Pete down.”

Should Rose be in the Hall-of-Fame

The credentials for Pete Rose as one of the greatest hitters in major-league baseball history are undeniable. But does that make him a Hall-of-Famer?

The all-time MLB record of 4,256 base hits, a .303 career average, 17-time all-star at five different positions, 10 times a Top 10 in MVP, including being voted MVP in 1973, three-time World Series winner, including one MVP in 1975, NL Rookie-of-the-Year in 1963 and 10 seasons with 200-plus hits. And there’s more.

But there was also the downside of his personality, his career and his life. Rose was a kid from the meaner streets of Cincinnati who even had to repeat his sophomore year of high school due to lack of his own interest. Some of his best friends outside the game were as shady as an Amazon rain forest. Pete had the means and the fame to make sure he got his way, sometimes outside the norms and many in his circle of trust were only too eager to cater to his vices and ill-advised whims.

More downside? At the all-star game in 1970, Pete scored the winning run by running over Indians’ catcher Ray Fosse at home plate, separating the catcher’s shoulder and basically ruining his career. It was an exhibition game! But Pete never, really, ever apologized.

During the NLCS in 1973, Rose slid hard into second base, breaking up a double play and ended up rolling around in the dirt with Mets’ shortstop Bud Harrelson, clearing the benches. He could rub opponents the wrong way. Then, later, as Reds manager, he was suspended 30 days by MLB for bumping umpire Dave Pallone and continued to deny what the video clearly showed.

It was a short stint with the Expos. In 1984, on a West Coast trip with the Expos, after a day game at Candlestick Park, back at the team hotel, Pete, with knowledge of Expos’ management, slipped down the back stairs, caught a cab to the airport, flew to Cincinnati and was at a press conference the next morning, before his Expos teammates were out of bed, announcing that he was the player-manager of the Reds. He never really addressed Expos media or the fans regarding his six months in Montreal. Ego always came first.

Post-playing career, it seemed to worsen. During his tumultuous final three years as Reds’ manager (1987-89), after retiring as a player, facing rumours of his gambling and targeted by media and MLB investigations, Rose took the offensive and denied ever betting on baseball and that it was all lies and the extent of his gambling was horses, basketball and football. It was a tough final act. He was constantly followed on game days by reporters looking to break him and break the story.

On April 1, 1989, three days after moving from NL president to the Commissioner, Bart Giamatti hired a special investigator, John M. Dowd, and the rest is history. Suspended for life after ‘89. It was only in 2004 that Rose finally admitted to gambling on his own sport. While Giamatti would not say that Pete ever bet against his own team, Dowd, who has always seemed to take his sparring with Rose much too personally, suggested that it was likely. No proof has been offered.

Will he or won’t Rose ever be honoured

On Tuesday, in a surprise announcement, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred lifted the permanent ineligibility, from Rose and 15 others, allowing them now to be considered for the Hall-of-Fame and other baseball related recognitions. All of the reinstated are deceased, but other than Rose, most of the others were members of the 1919 White Sox, famous for tanking the World Series against the Reds. Even though the Black Sox were never convicted of a crime, baseball, under its first commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, suspended them for life. The only legitimate candidate from that group, other than Rose would be Shoeless Joe Jackson.

Of course, the difference and the standard for those White Sox players is that they took money from gamblers for their team to lose the 1919 series. No one has been able to step up and suggest that Rose went against any of his teams when betting baseball.

Why was this announcement made now, even though Rose passed away on Sept. 30, 2024. The logical explanation is that the lifting of the ban wasn’t a groundswell from inside the sport to re-examine Rose’s candidacy but is more likely a reaction to President Donald Trump saying he was going to sign an executive order pardoning Rose so he could enter the Hall. This new status is likely a pre-emptive move from Manfred so it doesn’t look like the game is being run from the White House.

In any case, the next time Rose would even be eligible from the 16-person Veteran’s Committee would be 2027 for induction in 2028. The procedure is that thre is a list of eight candidates from the pre-1980 era and 12 votes (75%) would be required.

However, that process has really has not been set in stone. There is a second possibility. If the decision is made, instead, that Rose will be added to the annual BBWAA ballot since he never really had that opportunity when he was first eligible back in 1991, I would say Pete would then have a much better chance for success.

In any case, it’s finally an honest thing for baseball to lift the lifetime ban on Rose, whether or not he ever gains entry to Cooperstown, given the perceived hypocrisy of MLB’s embrace of its gambling partners and all it now means to the sport in terms of revenues and fan interest.

If Rose was on the next BBWAA ballot, he would have my vote.