ORLANDO, Fla. — Uh-oh. Here he comes, heading for the on-deck circle, for the first time in four decades. It’s … the Hit King!

Ladies and gentlemen, are we ready for this, coming up in December 2027 — Pete Rose, Hall of Fame candidate?

It’s a question we’ve never had to ponder seriously since August 1989, when Rose was shunted off to baseball’s permanently ineligible list by then-commissioner Bart Giamatti. But now that’s all changed.

In May, eight months after Rose’s death in September 2024, baseball’s all-time hits leader was removed from that list by commissioner Rob Manfred, following some not-so-subtle lobbying from President Donald Trump. Once that happened, it meant Rose was no longer barred, by Hall of Fame rules that were passed just for him, from appearing on a future Hall ballot.

So start the drum roll. That Pete Rose Hall of Fame debate is heading this way.

Are those 4,256 hits enough? Will there be extra points for sprinting to first base after walks and steamrolling catchers in the All-Star Game? Or is it still all about That Other Stuff — the bets on baseball, the lies about them, the statutory rape allegation, the troubling off-the-field behavior?

And what should we make of that reinstatement itself? Is it sending a message? By lifting his ban and clearing a posthumous path to the ballot, is MLB telling voters that Rose has essentially served his time? Or was that just a formality, after the uncomfortable debate about this man was stuck on hold for a few decades?

Then there’s the increasingly explosive issue of what betting on sports has become — and the high-profile scandals, from the mound in Cleveland to the arrests in the NBA. How does that subplot figure in, if at all?

Rose is no longer eligible to be voted on by the baseball writers. But watch for the next get-together of the Hall’s Classic Baseball Era Committee. That group is now just two years away from its first meeting since the Hit King shot back onto its list of potential candidates.

We should mention Rose isn’t guaranteed to make that ballot, but c’mon. How can he not?

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are historical baseball figures like him — and clouded by performance-enhancing drug controversies just as Rose is by gambling controversies. It hasn’t stopped those two from appearing twice on the Hall’s Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. Their most recent failure to gain traction on that ballot came this week. (Note: We both served as voting members of that committee and are respecting the pledge of confidentiality that comes with it.)

OK, so let’s assume Rose will make it onto that ballot in two years. Then what? We spent this Winter Meetings week asking that question to prominent people in the sport. Are they ready — is baseball ready – for the Hit King in the Hall of Fame? The answers were as conflicted as you would expect.

“I think that he should be there (in the Hall) — with some type of asterisk,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told The Athletic.

But Joe West, the all-time leader in games umpired, could not quite endorse the all-time leader in games played.

“Do Pete’s statistics say that he should be in? Yeah,” said West, who lives in Orlando in retirement. “But I think character has a lot to do with it.”

So here we go. Character. Asterisks. You’ll be hearing those words again — a million times — when Rose finally digs into that Hall of Fame batter’s box. How did the baseball people we talked to feel about those thorny little issues? Let’s take a longer look.

Tony Perez, friend and teammate

Pete Rose fist-bumps Tony Perez during his induction into the Reds Hall of Fame in 2016. (Jamie Sabau / Getty Images)

They played their first games together in 1960, in the Class-D New York-Penn League. It wasn’t the last time. Rose and Tony Perez spent 16 more seasons in Cincinnati (1964-76, then again in 1984-85-86), as teammates for the Reds, plus a 1983 reunion with the “Wheeze Kids” Phillies. So no one in baseball has seen the Pete Rose Show as close up as Atanasio (Tony) Perez.

Perez, a Hall of Famer himself, was one of the 16 people who had an official vote last weekend on Bonds and Clemens, as a member of the Contemporary Era Committee. In the case of Rose, his longtime friend and teammate, all he has is an opinion. You can no doubt guess what it is.

“I know he told me — he told a lot of people — that he doesn’t want to be (inducted) at the Hall of Fame when he passes,” Perez said. “But he belongs. He did what he did, and he paid for it, but he deserves to be a Hall of Famer.”

THE ATHLETIC: “Are you saying that as a teammate and a friend? Or are you saying that as a Hall of Famer yourself, knowing what the Hall of Fame is and what it represents?”

PEREZ: “I’d say either, because I’ve seen him play for a long time, since 1960. And in the way he plays the game and the way, as his teammate, that he makes a team better, he deserved to be in. That’s baseball. I want him to be in as his friend, too, but I don’t think (about) this like a friend. I think like a teammate, and part of the team he was playing for.”

Jim Kaat, Rose’s former pitching coach

Jim Kaat gives his Hall of Fame acceptance speech on Induction Day in 2022. (Gregory Fisher / Imagn Images)

But not all of Rose’s former teammates see it that way. Jim Kaat is the perfect example.

Kaat’s era as a pitcher was Rose’s era as a 200-hit machine. So they faced each other 40 times. Kaat was also Rose’s teammate, briefly, in Philadelphia — and a pitching coach under Rose the manager in Cincinnati, in 1984-85.

Kaat even scored a massive exclusive interview with Rose, as a broadcaster for ESPN, as MLB’s betting investigation was closing in, back in the spring of 1989.

“He went out back of the clubhouse and gave me a five- or 10-minute interview,” Kaat recalled. “And I asked him, ‘Did you bet on baseball?’ He kept denying he was. I get from a lot of people that, well, he just bet on his own team, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Well, there is.”

But as friendly as Kaat and Rose once were, this was one Hall of Famer who wasn’t interested in handing Rose a pass into the plaque gallery.

“I hear people talk about the sanctity of the plaque,” said Kaat, who was also a voter in this week’s Contemporary Era Committee election. “And I don’t know if he deserves one of those.”

Joe West, umpiring legend

“If you were on Pete’s team, you loved him. And if you weren’t on his team, you hated him,” Joe West said. “But Pete’s biggest problem was that he thought he was bigger than the game, and he wasn’t.” (Elsa / Getty Images)

They knew each other for close to 50 years — the Hit King and Cowboy Joe, the man with the longest tenure as a big-league umpire in history. So Rose played and/or managed in hundreds of games that Joe West umpired. Yet when you listen to West talk, you get the impression that despite everything he saw from Rose, he wouldn’t give him a Hall of Fame endorsement.

“Pete was a winner,” West told The Athletic. “If you were on Pete’s team, you loved him. And if you weren’t on his team, you hated him. But Pete’s biggest problem was that he thought he was bigger than the game, and he wasn’t.

“(Former Twins outfielder) Danny Gladden asked me one day, he said, ‘Do you think Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘Because of the gambling?’ and I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well, if not the gambling, why?’

“I said, ‘Well, the Hall of Fame is a special place, where you have to look at a man’s character. You don’t want somebody who’s a bad character in your Hall of Fame.’ And Pete hadn’t shown that he can be remorseful or sorry for his mistakes, and at the time he had not admitted (he bet on baseball). So I said, ‘That being the criteria, I’d have to say no.’”

West understands how easy it would be for future voters to look up and down Rose’s hits column and conclude it makes no sense for the Hall of Fame not to include a plaque for the player with the most hits ever. But Cooperstown, West said, is a place that stands for something larger than numbers.

“It hurts me to say this, but character has a lot to do with who you’re going to put in your shrine,” West said. “And I think if baseball looked back on what Ty Cobb did in his real life, you wouldn’t have put him in. And yet his statistics say that he has to be in.”

The managers speak

Aaron Boone was still in kindergarten the day in 1979 that Rose first walked into the Phillies clubhouse occupied by his dad, longtime catcher Bob Boone. So has any manager in this sport had a better view of the Hit King than the manager of the Yankees?

THE ATHLETIC: “You knew Pete very well. Would you put him in the Hall of Fame? Do you think he belongs despite everything?”

BOONE: “Yes, because I do fall in the place of, it’s a museum. I think it’s important to acknowledge what happened, and that’s why he wasn’t allowed back in the game, and that’s reasonable. But to me, enough time has gone off. So yeah, hopefully, he ends up there.”

TA: “So would you acknowledge it on the plaque somewhere? ‘Pete Rose got more hits than anyone who ever lived, but …’?”

BOONE: “No.”

TA: “Well, it sounded like you thought there should be some context or something there.”

BOONE: “Look, I think there always will be context when it comes to him. I think everyone’s going to know that story once he gets in. So I would be in favor, I think, of him going in. He’s an all-time great.”

But we didn’t have to ask that question of Dave Roberts. He brought up the asterisk on the plaque before we could even go there.

“For me personally, I think that his baseball card speaks to (getting a plaque in Cooperstown),” the Dodgers’ manager said. “It’s not easy. I know it’s not easy. … But I do think that there should be a place for him, and it could be noted, footnoted, of what happened.

“I think it should be mentioned that he got suspended, because then the bottom line is that his playing career warrants it. And no one can debate that. But I do think that having that part of the story (written on Rose’s plaque) is important. I think that’s important, too, to tell the (full) story.”

“I think that he should be there (in the Hall) — with some type of asterisk,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Pete Rose. (Mike Watters / Imagn Images)

Roberts never asked us if anyone agreed with him. But Rangers manager Skip Schumaker had a nearly identical take. The legend of No. 14, he said, is too large to ignore. And he believes Rose isn’t the only legend baseball needs to stop ignoring.

“How can you not have the all-time hits leader in the Hall of Fame?” Schumaker asked. “And I think people are ready for it. I’ve honestly thought it was tragic that he wasn’t here to see himself go into the Hall of Fame. So, yeah, I think there should be a bunch of people that should be in the Hall of Fame.”

Was he insinuating that Bonds and Clemens should also be in the Hall? Schumaker quickly nodded in the affirmative.

“Yes. Among others,” he said. “It’s a very interesting topic, because you can’t act like (PED use) never happened in the game. And I think the reality is that, in my opinion, if you want to put an asterisk by it, or whatever you want to do, Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame. He’s arguably the best hitter to ever be in a baseball uniform, so I think he absolutely should be in there.

“But I just also believe that if you want to put something by it, like explaining the (PED) era, or whatever you want to say about it, that’s OK too. I just don’t think that we should act like that never happened.”

But are Bonds and Clemens really no different than Rose?

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens didn’t come close to election in this week’s Contemporary Baseball Era Committee election. (Associated Press photos)

So are these men right? Is the Hall of Fame “only” a museum that should tell the complete story of baseball in every room and every way? Or is the plaque gallery a whole separate entity from the museum itself — a shrine that requires its brightest stars to earn the honor of being chiseled in bronze?

There is no automatic answer to that question. While you contemplate it, you should be aware that we contacted the Hall to ask how many Pete Rose artifacts are on display in the museum, even if the Hit King remains invisible inside the plaque gallery.

Tom Shieber, a senior archivist at the Hall, reported the museum has nine artifacts on display that are directly related to Rose. They include the shoes he wore when he set the all-time hits record, a jersey he wore during his MVP season of 1973, the cap he wore when he set the record for most games played in history and the bat he used to get a hit in his 44th straight game in 1978.

The Hall also has more than 20 other Rose artifacts in its archives, not even counting an array of pins, bobbleheads, photos, programs, cards, etc. So if you walk through the museum, you will be reminded repeatedly that Pete Rose did lots of unforgettable, historic things in baseball.

But the sport must decide: Is Rose’s “crime,” of betting on baseball, more or less serious than the “crimes” against baseball that the stars of the PED era committed?

The men who played at the same time as Rose think they know that answer. Even Rose’s good friend, Perez, made an unequivocal case that his teammate made the regrettable choice to commit baseball’s most serious offense.

“The difference was, that (no gambling) sign was in every clubhouse, at the door,” Perez said. “It was ‘NO GAMBLING,’ not ‘NO DRUGS.’ Gambling was the only sign we see every day when we get to the ballpark, to the clubhouse, and that’s why they think that he was wrong. He was wrong, wrong, wrong — because he forgot about that. He might be thinking he was better than baseball. No. Nobody’s better than baseball.”

Meanwhile in Cleveland …

Now, let’s address maybe the most uncomfortable question of all. We are having this conversation at the same time two pitchers for the Cleveland Guardians — Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz — are staring at federal charges that accuse them of allegedly helping gamblers win a series of prop bets.

By the time Rose appears on that Hall of Fame ballot, we are likely to know the fate of Clase and Ortiz. But what message would it deliver for voters to send Rose to the Hall at the same time two modern-day players might well be facing jail time for their own association with betting on baseball?

The manager of the Guardians, Stephen Vogt, couldn’t address that question. But he understood why we were asking him if there should be a place for Rose in the Hall.

“It’s a touchy subject, obviously,” Vogt said. “I just feel like we’ve had these rules in place for a long time, so I don’t know where that line gets drawn or how, you know, negate that. But I mean, Pete Rose obviously is one of the best players to ever walk the face of the planet. And there’s a lot of guys that — I mean, is it the Hall of Good People or is it the Hall of Fame? I don’t know the answer to that question.”

Vogt shared that he once wrote a paper in middle school on gambling on baseball. So what, we asked, would the young Stephen Vogt think about the possibility of the Hit King, now that he’s reinstated, getting into the Hall of Fame?

“I think I (wrote) that my opinion on the matter was no,” Vogt said. “But now, having worked in baseball and having seen what it takes, I’m glad I don’t have that decision to make.”

In two years, though, 16 members of a future era committee will have that decision to make. And how can you not wonder whether the fate of two Cleveland pitchers will somehow color the vote on baseball’s all-time hits leader.

“I don’t want to speculate on what’s true or not about the guys in Cleveland,” Boone said. “You just hope that (the consequences in) those high-profile cases will continue to be another in a long line of deterrents for (baseball) people from going down that road and knowing that there’s so much at stake.”

And don’t forget, Boone said, that whatever happens in two years, Rose has already paid a life-altering price — banished from the game for the rest of his lifetime and no longer alive to see his Hall of Fame case decided. It’s a story that has been told so many times — including again here — that no one who works in baseball can possibly pretend to ignore.

So is baseball ready for this — Pete Rose, Hall of Famer? That debate is going to intensify, so you might want to keep your volume button handy. But that debate will always include the full story of the Hit King, where the hits are inseparable from the purgatory.

“The penalty is still the ultimate penalty, whether he gets in the Hall of Fame or not,” Boone said. “He never got to work again.”
Pete Rose will be eligible for the Hall’s Classic Baseball Era ballot in two years. At the Winter Meetings, we asked prominent people in the sport whether Rose belongs Cooperstown. The answers were as conflicted as you would expect.