Pete Rose Unbanned From Baseball

NEW YORK, NY — In a historic decision, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has removed all deceased individuals, including the legendary Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, from the league’s permanently ineligible list. The move ends a decades-long ban and potentially clears a path to the Hall of Fame for some of the game’s most controversial figures.

The ruling, announced Tuesday in a letter from Manfred to attorney Jeffrey M. Lenkov, comes more than a century after Jackson’s involvement in the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal and nearly four decades after Rose was banned for betting on baseball games while managing the Cincinnati Reds.

“Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game,” Manfred wrote. “It is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve.”

Manfred's new policy states that MLB’s penalties end with death, allowing Rose, Jackson, and 15 other deceased individuals, including several of Jackson’s White Sox teammates and one owner, to be removed from the ineligible list.

The decision immediately renews the possibility of Hall of Fame induction for Rose and Jackson, whose candidacies have long been the subject of intense debate. Under current rules, both could be considered for election by the Hall’s 16-member Classic Baseball Era Committee, which next convenes in December 2027. If selected, enshrinement could come as soon as 2028.

Rose, baseball’s all-time hits leader with 4,256, accepted a lifetime ban in 1989 following an MLB investigation into his gambling activities. He had previously been denied reinstatement multiple times — most recently in 2015, when Manfred ruled that Rose continued to place legal bets and had not “reconfigured his life,” a condition set by then-Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti.

Jackson, whose .356 career batting average ranks fourth in MLB history, was banned in 1921 by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis along with seven other Chicago White Sox players for conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series. Though Jackson hit .375 in the series and played error-free defense, he was implicated in accepting payment from gamblers.

Rose, who died in September 2024 at age 83, never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot. In 1991, the Hall’s board passed a rule barring players on the ineligible list from consideration — a move that became widely known as “the Pete Rose rule.”

Lenkov said he plans to begin discussions with the Hall of Fame about Rose’s induction and will attend “Pete Rose Night” on Wednesday at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park with Rose’s family.

Hall of Fame officials have not yet commented on the ruling.