NEW YORK — Pete Rose has made his case for reinstatement with first-year commissioner Rob Manfred, who promised a decision by the end of December.
Major League Baseball said the meeting with the career hits leader and his representatives took place Thursday at MLB headquarters in New York.
“Commissioner Manfred informed Mr. Rose that he will make a decision on his application by the end of the calendar year,” MLB said in a news release.
Then the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, Rose agreed in 1989 to a lifetime ban from baseball after an investigation for MLB by lawyer John Dowd concluded that Rose bet on games involving the Reds while managing and playing for them.
Rose applied for reinstatement in September 1997 and met with commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never ruled on Rose’s application. Manfred succeeded Selig in January, and Rose again applied to end the ban.
Ray Genco, Rose’s lawyer, declined to comment Friday. Dowd, meanwhile, is confident Manfred will turn down the application.
“I’m glad he met with him. I’m glad he heard him out,” Dowd said. “I think Rob’s a fair commissioner, and I have no doubt that he’ll do the right thing by the game. I’m not concerned.”
Now 74 years old, Rose repeatedly denied betting on baseball until in his 2004 autobiography, “Pete Rose: My Prison Without Bars,” he reversed his stand and acknowledged that he bet on the Reds while managing the team.
At the time the ban agreement was announced, then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti said, “The burden is entirely on Mr. Rose to reconfigure his life in a way he deems appropriate.”
