Pete Rose is appealing to baseball’s Hall of Fame to restore his eligibility after agreeing to a lifetime ban in 1989 ¹ ² ³ ⁴ ⁵. Rose argues that the ban was never intended to keep him out of the Hall of Fame and that the settlement agreement he reached with then-Commissioner Bart Giamatti did not include a provision that he be ineligible for election to the Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame changed its bylaws two years after Rose’s banishment to make permanently banned players ineligible for the Hall, which shut out the career hits leader as long as he remained barred from baseball ¹ ² ³ ⁴. Rose agreed to the ban after an MLB investigation concluded he bet on games involving the Cincinnati Reds while managing the team.
Rose’s attorney, Raymond C. Genco, is asking the Hall to amend that bylaw specifically to allow Rose to be eligible for baseball writers to elect at their discretion ¹ ² ³ ⁴. Genco points out that the banishments of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays for their association with casinos didn’t affect their Hall status, and even Shoeless Joe Jackson had remained eligible after he was banned from the game for accepting money to throw the 1919 World Series.
Genco believes that the institution of baseball will be strengthened by this act of grace, which would give Pete Rose the same treatment that every other major league baseball player and manager received throughout the first 55 years of the National Baseball Hall of Fame ¹ ² ³ ⁴. However, the Hall of Fame’s president, Jeff Idelson, has stated that Pete Rose remains ineligible for Hall of Fame consideration, based on the Hall of Fame’s bylaws, which preclude any individual on baseball’s ineligible list from being considered for election.
