This past week Donald Trump threw a new wrinkle into one of baseball's longest running questions. Should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame has been a topic of conversation for baseball fans for decades now and Trump added another element to the story.
President Trump said he would pardon Rose and criticized MLB for banning the all-time hits leader from the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rose was given a lifetime ban from baseball from then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1989.
The President took to social media over the issue and wrote, "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," he went on to say, "He never betted against himself, or the other team. He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in history."
Those tweets re-opened up a discussion that has been ongoing since 1989. Sources have since come out and said that commissioner Rob Manfred is now considering a petition filed on Jan. 8 by Pete Rose's family to have Major League Baseball's all-time hit leader posthumously removed from baseball's ineligible list.
Jeffrey Lenkov, a Los Angeles lawyer who represented Rose prior to his death in late September, said he filed the reinstatement petition after he and Fawn Rose, the oldest daughter of Pete Rose, met with Manfred and MLB spokesman Pat Courtney in the commissioner's office.
MLB sources acknowledged the commissioner met with Fawn Rose and Lenkov and that Manfred is now reviewing the petition to reinstate Rose. Manfred has been through this before rejecting the reinstatement petition in 2015.
Lenkov said, "It is now time to turn the page on Pete Rose's legacy in baseball and for the Hall of Fame to honor him. Whether you are a fan or not of Pete Rose, we are at our best a nation of second chances, a nation of giving people second opportunities. We don't write off people."
Lenkov also alluded to the fact that the ban was called a "lifetime ban" and now his life is over, so he should be allowed to be enshrined.
Rose spent most of his 24-year career with the Cincinnati Reds, won the World Series three times and is Major League Baseball's career leader in hits, games played, at-bats, singles and outs. Before he died the Reds allowed him to come back to the stadium and be around the team.