{"id":1640,"date":"2025-04-30T13:26:16","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T13:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/1640\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T13:26:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T13:26:16","slug":"trump-and-baseball-commish-meeting-puts-mlb-on-brink-of-historic-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/1640\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump And Baseball Commish Meeting Puts MLB On Brink Of Historic Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said he discussed Pete Rose with President Donald Trump<\/a> at a meeting two weeks ago and he plans to rule on a request to end the sport\u2019s permanent ban<\/a> of the career hits leader, who died in September.<\/p>\n

Speaking Monday at a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors, Manfred said he and Trump have discussed several issues, including Manfred\u2019s concerns over how Trump\u2019s immigration policies could impact players from Cuba, Venezuela and other foreign countries.<\/p>\n

Manfred is considering a petition to have Rose posthumously removed from MLB\u2019s permanently ineligible list. The petition was filed in January by Jeffrey Lenkov, a Southern California lawyer who represented Rose prior to the 17-time All-Star\u2019s death<\/a> at age 83.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met with President Trump two weeks ago, I guess now, and one of the topics was Pete Rose, but I\u2019m not going beyond that,\u201d Manfred said. \u201cHe\u2019s said what he said publicly, I\u2019m not going beyond that in terms of what the back and forth was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RoseRose connects for hit No. 4,192 to break Ty Cobb’s all time hitting record in a 1985 game.<\/p>\n

Trump posted on social media Feb. 28 that he plans to issue \u201ca complete PARDON of Pete Rose.\u201d Trump posted on Truth Social<\/a> that Rose \u201cshouldn\u2019t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING.\u201d It\u2019s unclear what a presidential pardon might include \u2014 Trump did not specifically mention a tax case in which Rose pleaded guilty in 1990 to two counts of filing false tax returns and served a five-month prison sentence.<\/p>\n

The president said he would sign a pardon for Rose \u201cover the next few weeks\u201d but has not addressed the matter since.<\/p>\n

Rose had 4,256 hits and also holds records for games (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890). He was the 1973 National League MVP and played on three World Series winners.<\/p>\n

An investigation for MLB by lawyer John M. Dowd found Rose placed numerous bets<\/a> on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985-87 while playing for and managing the team. Rose agreed with MLB on a permanent ban in 1989.<\/p>\n

Lenkov is seeking Rose\u2019s reinstatement so that he can be considered for the Hall of Fame. Under a rule adopted by the Hall\u2019s board of directors in 1991, anyone on the permanently ineligible list can\u2019t be considered for election<\/a> to the Hall. Rose applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with Commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never ruled on Rose\u2019s request. Manfred in 2015 denied Rose\u2019s application for reinstatement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Manfred said reinstating Rose now was \u201ca little more complicated than it might appear on the outside\u201d and did not commit to a timeline except that \u201cI want to get it done promptly as soon as we get the work done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to give this the pocket veto,\u201d he said. \u201cI will in fact issue a ruling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Cincinnati Reds’ held a moment of silence to honor Pete Rose on Opening Day this season.<\/p>\n

Cincinnati Reds via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Rose\u2019s reinstatement doesn\u2019t mean he would automatically appear on a Hall of Fame ballot. He would first have to be nominated by the Hall\u2019s Historical Overview Committee, which is picked by the Baseball Writers\u2019 Association of America and approved by the Hall\u2019s board. Manfred is an ex-officio member of that board and says he has been in regular contact with chairman Jane Forbes Clark.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, believe me, a lot of Hall of Fame dialogue on this one,\u201d Manfred said.<\/p>\n

If reinstated, Rose potentially would be eligible for consideration to be placed on a ballot to be considered by the 16-member Classic Baseball Era committee in December 2027.<\/p>\n

Manfred added he doesn\u2019t think baseball\u2019s current ties to legal sports betting should color views on Rose\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is and always has been a clear demarcation between what Rob Manfred, ordinary citizen, can do on the one hand, and what someone who has the privilege to play or work in Major League Baseball can do on the other in respect to gambling,\u201d he said. \u201cThe fact that the law changed, and we sell data and\/or sponsorships, which is essentially all we do, to sports betting enterprises, I don\u2019t think changes that. It\u2019s a privilege to play Major League Baseball. As with every privilege, there comes responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is that they not bet on the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Manfred did not go into details on his discussion with Trump over foreign-born players other than to say he expressed worry.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the number of foreign-born players we have, we\u2019re always concerned about ingress and egress,\u201d Manfred said. \u201cWe have had dialogue with the administration about this topic. And, you know, they\u2019re very interested in sports. They understand the unique need to be able to go back and forth, and I\u2019m going to leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said he discussed Pete Rose with President Donald Trump at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,1220,1222,4,1219,330],"class_list":{"0":"post-1640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-hall-of-fame","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-pete-rose","13":"tag-rob-manfred"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114427146013113597","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}