MLB: Commissioner Rob Manfred Keeps Ban On Pete Rose

Pete Rose to remain barred from Cooperstown amid Manfred’s ruling.

By William Chase

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is not lifting the lifetime ban on Pete Rose.

Major League Baseball’s all-time hits leader was banned from baseball for his part in gambling on the Cincinnati Reds as a player and manager, and has been barred from the sport since 1989.

BREAKING: MLB decides not to lift lifetime ban on Pete Rose. (via @TJQuinnESPN & @nytimes) pic.twitter.com/BOgPdO7wxD

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 14, 2015

Support for Charlie Hustle has only increased over the years.

Many believe it is time to end the ban, and put him into Cooperstown. 

He was even welcomed back by the Cincinnati Reds for the All-Star game festivities this past season, and was hired by Fox Sports as an analyst.

The only question I have is, if baseball ever decides to put Rose in, what about Shoeless Joe Jackson, a lifetime .356 hitter who, along with the rest of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox, was tried for similar acts — only to be acquitted in 1921 — yet was still banished by the sport?

Many bring up the steroids-era, and those players that were associated with taking part in PED’s. While baseball never had any rules barring PED-use initially, there has always been rules in place regarding gambling — The Cardinal Sin of Baseball.

Maybe Pete is in Cooperstown by now if he had fessed up sooner — he admitted it in 2004 — or if he even showed the slightest bit of contrition when initial light to his gambling came by way of the Dowd Report— a 225-page report by John Dowd, Special Counsel to the Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti; an investigation into the events which spanned four months.

The question remains: if Pete ever gets in, what about Shoeless Joe?