As it turns out, he could be closer than ever to getting his wish. Even before Trump shared his opinion about one of the most controversial and hotly debated topics in sports history on Friday, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred had already begun weighing Rose’s status.

Rose’s family filed a new petition two months ago formally asking Manfred to reinstate the game’s all-time hits leader, who has been on the permanently ineligible list since 1989 for betting on baseball.

Now Manfred is set to become the first modern commissioner to answer a surprisingly complicated question that has gone unaddressed for generations: Does “permanently ineligible” continue to apply beyond the grave?

Rose tried to have his banishment lifted on numerous occasions throughout the final decades of his life, always without success. The difference this time is that Rose died in September at the age of 83, which could change Manfred’s calculation.

The stakes remain unchanged. Getting off MLB’s permanently ineligible list would clear the way for Rose’s potential enshrinement in Cooperstown.

Some within baseball view the list, which has existed since Kenesaw Mountain Landis became the first commissioner in 1920, as having a narrow and specific purpose: to prevent people who pose a threat to the integrity or reputation of the game from working in the industry. That concern disappears when the person in question dies. (Rose was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds when he was exiled.)

Pete Rose has been on the permanently ineligible list since 1989 for betting on baseball. Photo: John Swart/AP

John Thorn, MLB’s official historian, wrote in a 2016 essay that MLB “derives no practical benefit from maintaining deceased players on an ineligible list.” Rose is believed to be the first person banned by a commissioner other than Landis to die while still on the list, effectively making this an unprecedented issue for Manfred to settle. MLB Rule 21, which has long been considered baseball’s most sacred, says that anyone who bets on his own games “shall be declared permanently ineligible.”

The bigger issue is that while removing Rose from the list at this point would likely have minimal effect on MLB’s business, the decision would be seismic for the Hall of Fame. The Hall is operated by a private foundation, and MLB doesn’t control who actually goes in it. But the Hall uses MLB’s list as the basis for Rose’s ineligibility for induction.

In 1991, the Hall’s board of directors declared that anybody on MLB’s permanently ineligible list couldn’t be a candidate. That was the year Rose was set to debut on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Hall of Fame ballot.

Manfred said in 2022 that he “didn’t think that the function of that baseball list was the same as the eligibility criteria for the Hall of Fame.”

These distinctions aren’t interesting to Trump. In a Truth Social post last week, he promised a “complete pardon” of Rose. He went on to criticize MLB for lacking “the courage or decency” to put Rose in Cooperstown, before casting blame on the sport more generally.

“Baseball, which is dying all over the place,” Trump wrote, “should get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!”

It’s unclear how a presidential pardon might sway Rose’s Hall of Fame eligibility. Rose was sentenced to five months in prison in 1990 after pleading guilty to tax evasion. He was also accused of having a sexual relationship with an underage girl in the 1970s, though he was never charged with a crime.

Trump has relished issuing posthumous accolades for athletes, including a pardon for boxer Jack Johnson. He also awarded the medal of freedom to Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Babe Ruth during his first term.

Should Manfred remove Rose from the permanently ineligible list, it would still be several years before Rose would have a chance of being elected to Cooperstown.

His case could be taken up by a 16-member committee of Hall of Famers, baseball executives and veteran media members that evaluates players who made their greatest impact before 1980. Rose compiled 3,372 of his record 4,256 hits during that era and claimed his lone MVP award for the Reds in 1973. He also won the World Series with the Reds in 1975 and 1976.

The Classic Era Committee—which this winter elected Dave Parker and Dick Allen—convenes every three years. The group won’t meet again until December 2027, meaning the earliest Rose could be inducted would be July 2028. At that point, Rose would need to receive 75% of the committee’s votes.

Pete Rose’s case could be taken up by a 16-member committee of Hall of Famers, baseball executives and veteran media members that evaluates players who made their greatest impact before 1980. Photo: J. Walter Green/Associated Press

Rose family lawyer Jeffrey Lenkov and Rose’s daughter, Fawn, met with Manfred and Major League Baseball chief communications officer Pat Courtney on Dec. 17. The family sent a letter formally seeking Rose’s reinstatement on Jan. 8.

There is no timeline for Manfred to reach a resolution of Rose’s petition.

If he rules in Rose’s favor, Rose wouldn’t be the only deceased player who could wind up in Cooperstown. Shoeless Joe Jackson, a star in the early 20th century, was banned from baseball in 1921 along with seven of his Chicago White Sox teammates who were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series.

But it’s far from a certainty. Jackson was technically eligible for Cooperstown from the year of the Hall’s first ballot in 1936 until the Hall’s decision in 1991 to disallow people on the permanently ineligible list. Jackson was never picked.