Trump to pardon late Pete Rose ‘in the coming weeks’ while MLB considers petition to reinstate all-time hits leader

By Issy Ronald, Wayne Sterling and Christian Sierra, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he plans to pardon the late baseball all-time hit king Pete Rose “in the coming weeks,” while Major League Baseball is considering a petition to posthumously remove the Cincinnati Reds icon from the sport’s ineligible list.

In a statement on Truth Social, Trump wrote that he will be issuing a “complete pardon” of Rose who gambled on his own team, ending his budding baseball managerial career when he was banned from the sport in 1989 and making him ineligible for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Trump criticized MLB for not having “the courage or decency” to put Rose into the Baseball Hall of Fame and urged them to posthumously award him the sport’s biggest honor.

It’s unclear what Trump will pardon the three-time World Series champion for. He didn’t explicitly mention the case in which Rose pleaded guilty to tax evasion and served five months in the Federal Prison Camp in Marion, Illinois, between August 1990 and January 1991.

Rose denied the gambling accusations for years until 2004 when he wrote in his autobiography, “My Prison Without Bars,” that he turned to betting as a way “to recapture the high I got from winning batting titles and World Series.”

Also on Saturday, ESPN and the Associated Press reported that Manfred is considering a petition filed in January by Rose’s family to have the 17-time All-Star removed from the league’s ineligible list.

Jeffrey Lenkov, the lawyer who represented Rose until his death in September 2024 at the age of 83, told CNN that he filed a petition in January and that he attended a meeting with Rose’s daughter Fawn, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and MLB executive Pat Courtney on December 17.

Lenkov said that MLB is evaluating the petition.

Lenkov told ESPN he had not “actively sought” the White House’s help in trying to get Rose removed from the ineligible list, without which he cannot be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

A spokesperson for the National Baseball Hall of Fame tells CNN that if MLB were to reinstate the 1975 World Series MVP, his consideration for induction into Cooperstown must come through the Hall’s Era Committee process rather than the Baseball Writers’ Association of America vote.

“Voting rules require that candidates on the BBWAA ballot must have played in the Major Leagues no more than 15 years prior to each election,” the Hall of Fame spokesperson said.

Trump has urged MLB to include Rose in the Baseball Hall of Fame before, tweeting in February 2020 that the player “gambled, but only on his own team winning, and paid a decades long price.”

Rose petitioned the MLB to be reinstated in September 2016 and February 2020.

Rose was one of baseball’s greats who topped MLB’s all-time hit list with 4,256 over a 24-season career. He stood out for his all-in effort, sliding head-first and running even when a pitcher walked him – a style that earned him the nickname, first derisively, then admiringly, “Charlie Hustle.”

CNN’s Kevin Dotson contributed to this report.

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