Pete Rose is still banned from baseball's Hall of Fame after asking to be reconsidered, as the keepers of sports’ holiest place have affirmed their stance of not voting on players who are banned by MLB. Some think the lords of baseball are playing games.
The Los Angeles Times got the scoop after inquiring about Rose's request for consideration made back last September.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame board voted in December to deny Rose's request, but didn’t make that public until this week, said the Times.
"After extensive discussion, a vote was taken in which the board ratified the resolution that was passed on February 4, 1991, known today as Rule 3(E) in the [Baseball Writers' Association of America's] election rules. As such, anyone deemed permanently ineligible by Major League Baseball, including Pete Rose, may not be considered for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame," said a board statement obtained by the Times.
Rose is Major League Baseball's all-time hit leader with 4,256 hits while playing mostly for the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies, per the record book.
Rose was placed on the permanently ineligible list for violating Major League Baseball's strict rule against betting on baseball on Aug. 23, 1989, reported MLB.com. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum declared that all players on that list would also be ineligible for election.
In 2015, then new baseball commissioner Rob Manfred upheld Rose's suspension from professional baseball.
"Mr. Rose has not presented credible evidence of a reconfigured life either by an honest acceptance by him of his wrongdoing, so clearly established by the Dowd Report, or by a rigorous, self-aware and sustained program of avoidance by him of the circumstances that led to his permanent eligibility in 1989,” Manfred wrote then, per MLB .com.
"Absent such credible evidence, allowing him to work in the game presents an unacceptable risk of a future violation by him of Rule 21, and thus to the integrity of our sport," Manfred said.
Craig Calcaterra of NBC Sports came to Rose's defense, saying that Major League Baseball and the Baseball Hall of Fame are two separate organizations and there is no reason for him not to be considered for the Hall of Fame, regardless of Major League's baseball ban.
"The Hall of Fame is about history, and Rose the ballplayer was one of baseball's greatest figures," said Calcaterra. "He deserves induction. His fans, of which there are many, would love to see it take place. That the Hall of Fame won't even allow the possibility of that happening is a shame."