“Over the next few weeks, I will be signing a complete pardon of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball but only bet on his team winning” – President Donald Trump
Pete Rose, MLB’s all-time hit King, passed away on Sept. 30, 2024, at 83. Towards the end of his life, Rose seemed to have been at peace. Having finally acknowledged that he had violated baseball’s most sacred and adamantly enforced rule, “Charlie Hustle,” as he was widely known, had begun to reappear in some baseball circles.
Among his more notable appearances was the professorial, bow-tie-wearing disposition that he brought to the expert-hitting panel of the Fox Sports broadcast of the 2016 NLCS. Fans were treated to a fundamental tutorial of the hit King’s swing. This was a surprise gift for an older generation of Pete Rose fans and a reminder to the younger generation that a contact approach to hitting can lead to results, success, and longevity in the game.
Ironically, two of the three members of this expert panel (the other being Frank Thomas) will likely never be inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Alex Rodriguez has openly admitted to using PEDs during his decorated and statistically dominant career.
Still, he garners a reasonable percentage of supporters. In his three years of eligibility, from 2022 to 2024, ARod generated 34.3%, 35.7%, and 34.8%, respectively. This is a far cry from the 75% required for induction, but it indicates that, on some minority level, there is a camp of supporters for his eventual induction.
By comparison, Pete Rose has never received a single Hall of Fame vote. He was permanently banned from baseball in 1989 by then-Commissioner Bart Giamatti for betting on baseball. This decision was further solidified in 1991 by Commissioner Fay Vincent and the Baseball Hall of Fame, which declared that any player banned from MLB would also be deemed permanently ineligible for induction.
President Trump now wishes to issue an order effectively pardoning Rose for his very serious misdeeds. The chances of this order affecting Pete Rose’s posthumous induction are net zero.
The fact remains that Pete Rose knowingly bet on baseball and his own team, no less when he was a player-manager. For reasons unknown, President Trump is trying to convey a peculiar point. Given that his (Rose’s) bets were placed on his team winning rather than losing, this minimizes and pardons the offense.
Unfortunately for Rose advocates and perhaps Trump supporters, the “winning or losing” piece does not exist as a point of contention. No MLB personnel are permitted to bet on baseball. This rule is communicated to each and every member of an MLB organization, from the clubhouse staff to the cleanup hitter; everyone knows that this is the most widely understood rule in baseball. It always has been and always will be.
Pete Rose was a great player for the Big Red Machine Cincinnati Reds teams of the 1970s and contributed to the Phillies in their 1980 World Series win. It is difficult to imagine that he would have been on an MLB roster beyond the age of 39 by today’s standards.
His production level dropped rather sharply during the 1980s. According to Rose’s 2000 autobiography, My Prison Without Bars, those were the years when he placed bets on baseball games and could have influenced the outcome as a player-manager.
This revelation starkly contrasted his years of denial and insistence publicly that he had never bet on baseball, period. President Trump may be looking to begin discussing with the BBWAA and the Hall of Fame Era Committee to consider a posthumous induction for Pete Rose. Implying that betting on one’s own team to “win” and that Pete Rose is one of the greatest players of all time is probably not the best way to make this happen.
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