Pete Rose, 1919 Black Sox Eligible For Hall Of Fame After Ruling

Pete Rose, one of baseball’s greatest baseball players who was banned from the sport for life in 1989, will finally be eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame after a ruling handed down Tuesday by the commissioner of Major League Baseball.

Rob Manfred ruled that MLB’s policy shall be that “permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual.” Rose, baseball’s all-time hits leader and a 17-time All-Star, died in September at age 83.

The ruling was spurred by an application by Rose’s lawyer and family, and came about as Rose was the first player banned after the tenure of baseball’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis — who originated the rule of no gambling in baseball in 1921 — to die while still on the list.

Rose was banned from the game in 1989 after an investigation found he bet on games — a violation of MLB’s Rule 21 — while manager of the Cincinnati Reds, the team where he won two of his three World Series as a player (in 1975 and 1976). He agreed to the ban, which made him automatically ineligible for the Hall of Fame.

“In my view, a determination must be made regarding how the phrase ‘permanently ineligible’ should be interpreted in light of the purposes and policies behind Rule 21, which are to: (1) protect the game from individuals who pose a risk to the integrity of the sport by prohibiting the participation of such individuals; and (2) create a deterrent effect that reduces the likelihood of future violations by others,” Manfred wrote in a letter to Rose’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lenkov. “In my view, once an individual has passed away, the purposes of Rule 21 have been served. Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game. Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve. Therefore, I have concluded that permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual, and Mr. Rose will be removed from the permanently ineligible list.”

Indeed, while promoting the excellent HBO limited series Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose last year, the MLB icon estimated that “gambling cost me a hundred million [dollars]. That’s what I’d have made in baseball if I hadn’t got suspended.”

For years, Rose claimed he had never bet on baseball (in the documentary, one observer calls him a worthy candidate for the liars’ hall of fame). He eventually came clean, and in the interview he made few bones about his wagers. Recalling that earlier time, he commented, “I’m saying to myself, ‘If I’m a gambler, why not bet on my team? I’m running the goddamn show. I can make the moves.’ I never bet against my team. I bet on my team every fricking night. That’s the kind of faith I had in my players… I won a hell of a lot more games than I lost. So in that respect, I was a respected gambler when I was betting on baseball. But I shouldn’t have did it. But it was fun doing it.”

Landis was appointed baseball’s first commissioner in 1921 in the aftermath of what would become known as the Black Sox scandal, when eight Chicago White Sox players found to have taken bribes to throw games during the 1919 World Series. Landis created the permanently ineligible list and then put all eight players on it.

Those eight — a group that includes “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, a career .356 hitter, along with Arnold “Chick” Gandil, Eddie Cicotte, Oscar “Happy” Felsch, Fred McMullin, Charles “Swede” Risberg, George “Buck” Weaver and Claude “Lefty” Williams — were all reinstated today along with Rose and eight other players on the list.

The Black Sox scandal was the subject of John Sayles’ 1988 film Eight Men Out, starring D.B. Sweeney as Jackson, David Strathairn as Cicotte, Charlie Sheen as Felsch, Michael Rooker as Gandil, Don Harvey as Risberg and John Cusack as Weaver. The cast also included John Mahoney, Clifton James and Michael Lerner, and Sayles played the writer Ring Lardner.

Manfred said the decision does not automatically qualify the players for Hall of Fame voting; that will be up to the hall, which said today in its statement that its “Historical Overview Committee will develop the ballot of eight names for the Classic Baseball Era Committee – which evaluates candidates who made their greatest impact on the game prior to 1980 – to vote on when it meets next in December 2027.”