Pete Rose asked commissioner Rob Manfred on Wednesday morning to remove his name from Major League Baseball’s ineligible list, which would allow the all-time hits leader to be considered for induction into the Hall of Fame.
In a petition sent to the MLB commissioner’s office, Rose and his lawyers argue that Manfred has recently opted not to punish players guilty of major game-changing rules infractions and, as a result, should end Rose’s 30½-year ban for gambling on baseball while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
The lawyers say that Rose’s lifetime ban is “vastly disproportionate” when compared to MLB’s punishments of players who took performance-enhancing drugs and the players involved in the sign-stealing schemes by the 2017 Houston Astros.
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For 15 years, Rose repeatedly denied he had bet on baseball. But in 2004, Rose admitted in his book, “My Prison Without Bars,” that he had wagered on baseball and the Reds in the 1980s.
Besides Manfred in 2015, MLB commissioner Bud Selig also rejected Rose’s previous application for reinstatement.
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