MLB Commissioner Promises Decision on Pete Rose Reinstatement by Year’s End

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfed promises to provide Pete Rose with a decision on his application for reinstatement by the end of December.

”The end of the year is my deadline,” Manfred explained at MLB’s general managers meeting on Tuesday. ”I’m not telling you that this is coming Dec. 30 or whatever. It will be done before the end of the year, let me be clear about that.”

Rose met with the commissioner at the All-Star Game in Cincinnati in July. He met again with Manfred in September regarding reinstatement.

Rose’s role as a baseball analyst for Fox gives MLB’s all-time hit king a more high-profile role in the game than he has enjoyed for years. His presence on baseball broadcasts, his legacy as a hustling, overachieving player, and his partial admissions of malfeasance have worked to win popular opinion, if not the outlook of the sports Fourth Estate, to his side.

In 1989, the Reds and Phillies great agreed to a ban after allegations arose that he bet on baseball games, including on ones involving the Cincinnati Reds, the team he managed. With the Baseball Writers’ Association of America subsequently prohibiting any player appearing on the commissioner’s ineligible list from appearing on a Hall of Fame ballot, the ban essentially keeps him out of Cooperstown as well off a Major League Baseball diamond.

Although Rose boasting a .303 lifetime batting average and career records for hits, singles, and games played ostensibly makes him a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, evidence of his gambling—which mounted to even greater levels after an ESPN report detailing wagers he allegedly made as a player—may prevent some writers from voting for him even if the commissioner lifts the ban.