Pete Rose is now eligible for the National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot beginning in December 2027.
That doesn’t mean he’s ever going to be in the hallowed grounds in Cooperstown, New York.
Because even though MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced on Tuesday that 17 persons — including Rose and the eight banished members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox who were accused of conspiring to lose the World Series — have cleared the lifetime ban standard by dying, they still need to get past what can be a minefield of an Era Committee.
This 16-person collection of historians, writers, and, most importantly, six to eight Hall of Fame players would be expected to hold Rose to the same standards as they were while playing. As in, when they were playing and presumably not betting on baseball because there’s a poster in every clubhouse reminding them its a banishable offense.
Rose still did, lied about it, and admitted it only when confronted with irrefutable evidence.
“I absolutely think that will matter,” Jacob Pomrenke, the chairman of the Society for American Baseball Research’s Black Sox Scandal Research Committee, told InGame. “I do think there are going to be people on that Hall of Fame committee that are going to take those offenses seriously because the decision does not change the reality of what Pete Rose did. He was betting on his own team.”
Rose died at 83 last September.
From Eight Men Out to 17 men back in
List of reinstated MLB players:
- Eddie Cicotte: “Black Sox” pitcher, banned in 1921
- William Cox: Phillies owner banned in 1943 for betting on his teams
- Cozy Dolan: Giants coach banned in 1924 for offering Phillies shortstop Heinie Sand $500 to throw a game
- Phil Douglas: Giants pitcher banned in 1922 for threatening to quit during the pennant chase after quarreling with manager John McGraw
- Happy Felsch: “Black Sox” outfielder, 1921
- Chick Gandil: ringleader of the “Black Sox” scheme, first baseman, 1921
- Joe Gedeon: Browns second baseman, banned for knowing of “Black Sox” conspiracy, 1921
- Joe Jackson: “Black Sox” outfielder, 1921
- Benny Kauff: Giants outfielder, acquitted of car theft charge, but Commissioner Kenesaw “Mountain” Landis refused to lift his ban from 1921
- Lee Magee: Cubs infielder accused of game-fixing in a case that was discovered during the “Black Sox” investigation, banned in 1921
- Fred McMullin: “Black Sox” third baseman, 1921
- Jimmy O’Connell: Giants outfielder conspired with Dolan to bribe Sand
- Gene Paulette: Phillies infielder, banned for associating with known gamblers, 1921
- Swede Risberg: “Black Sox” shortstop, 1921
- Pete Rose: banned, 1989, for betting on the Reds
- Buck Weaver: “Black Sox” infielder, 1921
- Lefty Williams: “Black Sox” pitcher, 1921
Folk hero status may earn Jackson his spot
Does “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who died in 1951, stand a better chance than Rose of election, having been romanticized in literature and film?
Pomrenke thinks so.
“I think Shoeless Joe has become almost kind of a mythological figure in baseball at this point and really just in American culture, just with the movie Field of Dreams,” Pomrenke said. “I think the finer details of Shoeless Joe’s transgressions, that’s something that historians are paying attention to, but a lot of fans think, ‘Hey, this happened a long time ago. We should not be continuing to punish someone like that.’ ”
