Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced that Pete Rose was being removed from the permanently ineligible list in 2025. That decision means Rose, MLB’s all-time hit king, is now eligible to be considered for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Under rules of the Hall of Fame, Rose had been barred from consideration for the honor while he was on baseball’s ineligible list. Now, he could be considered as a candidate by the Classic Baseball Era committee. That committee does not meet again until December of 2028. Any candidates elected via that method would be inducted in 2029.
Rose died on September 30, 2024. He spent the last 25 years of his life mostly excluded from the game he loved, due to a deal with the commissioner’s office where he was not to be found to have gambled on baseball. That deal was basically worth nothing: the commissioners who followed i succession all suspected Rose had indeed gambled, and had the evidence for his bets while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Rose later admitted to betting on his team.
Yet during his lifetime, despite many appeals to be reinstated so he could be honored in Cooperstown, Rose was denied while he was alive.
