Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is considering a request to reinstate Pete Rose from the family of the league’s all-time hit leader, ESPN reported Saturday. Rose, who died in September at age 83, was banned from the MLB for life in 1989 after an investigation found that he had gambled on baseball games while he was a player and manager. In 1991, the Baseball Hall of Fame voted to ban anyone on the MLB’s so-called “permanently ineligible” list from induction, leaving the history museum absent one of the sport’s greatest and most controversial figures. Rose’s family filed the petition with Manfred in January, ESPN said, after his eldest daughter Fawn and his onetime lawyer Jeffrey Lenkov met with the commissioner’s office in December. Lenkov told ESPN that Manfred was “respectful, gracious, and actively participated in productive discussions regarding removing Rose from the ineligible list.” The news came one day after President Donald Trump said he would posthumously pardon Rose, who pleaded guilty in 1990 to two federal charges of filing false tax returns and served a five-month prison sentence. “He never betted against himself or the other team,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Lenkov told ESPN that he had “not actively sought” Trump’s assistance but added that “Pete would have appreciated the president’s commitment to him.”
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