The MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is considering a petition for Pete Rose to be posthumously distant from the ineligible list of the Major Baseball League, according to reports.
ESPN was the first to report on the reintegration petition tabled by Jeffrey Lenkov, a lawyer in southern California who represented Rose before his death at the age of 83 in September.
Lenkov attended a meeting of December 17 with Rose’s daughter, Fawn, Manfred and the director of the MLB Pat Courtney at the commissioner’s office. The petition was deposited on January 8.
A message was left behind on Saturday evening, asking for comments from Lenkov.
All-star 17 times, Rose is the leader in the baseball career with 4,256 strokes. He also holds the major league record for matches played (3,562) and plates appearances (15,890). He was the 1973 National League MVP and played three winners of the World Series.
An investigation for MLB by lawyer John M. Dowd revealed that Rose had placed many bets on the Reds of Cincinnati to win from 1985 to 1987 while playing and managing the team. Rose agreed with MLB on a permanent ban in 1989.
Lenkov told ESPN that he was looking for rose withdrawal from the prohibited list “so that we can seek an enthronement to the temple of national baseball, which has long been his desire and is now sought after by his family.” He described Manfred as respectful, graceful and an active participant at their hour meeting in December.
Under a rule adopted by the Salle Board of Directors in 1991, anyone on the permanent ineligible list cannot be considered for the election to the room.
Rose asked for a reinstatement in 1997 and met Commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never ruled on the request of Rose. Manfred in 2015 denied the request for reintegration of Rose.
Friday evening, President Donald Trump posted on social networks that he planned to issue “a complete forgiveness of Pete Rose”. Trump posted on Truth Social that Rose “should not have played on baseball, but only bet on the victory of his team”.
Trump did not specifically mention the Rose’s tax case in which Rose pleaded guilty in 1990 to two chiefs for the deposit of false income declarations and served a sentence of five months in prison.
The president said he would sign a forgiveness for Rose “in the coming weeks”.
