Kuzul

Pete Rose is making his case to the Baseball Hall of Fame in an effort to get on the ballot 27 years after agreeing to a permanent ban from Major League Baseball for betting on games during his time as a player and manager for the Cincinnati Reds.

On Wednesday, USA Today‘s A.J. Perez shared a copy of a letter Rose’s attorneys, Raymond Genco and Mark Rosenbaum, sent to the Hall of Fame:

We are writing to respectfully request that Pete Rose be treated exactly the same way that every other Major League Baseball (MLB) player and manager has been treated from the start of the National Baseball Hall of Fame voting in 1936 until 1991. We humbly submit to you that Rule 3A should be amended in a limited way, to allow Pete Rose to be treated in exactly the same way as every other player and manager before him had been treated.

This is not the first time Rose has tried to get back into baseball’s good graces. In December, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred denied Charlie Hustle’s request to be reinstated, with this explanation, per MLB.com’s Paul Hagen:

Mr. Rose has not presented credible evidence of a reconfigured life either by an honest acceptance by him of his wrongdoing, so clearly established by the Dowd Report, or by a rigorous, self-aware and sustained program of avoidance by him of the circumstances that led to his permanent eligibility in 1989. Absent such credible evidence, allowing him to work in the game presents an unacceptable risk of a future violation by him of Rule 21, and thus to the integrity of our sport. 

In 2015, William Weinbaum and T.J. Quinn of ESPN’s Outside the Lines reported documents showed that Rose bet on baseball games during his playing career after he had insisted for years that the only time he bet came during his time as a manager from 1986 to 1989.

Since the Baseball Hall of Fame is owned and operated by groups separate from MLB, it adopted its own rule in February 1991 against voting for any player on MLB’s permanently ineligible list. 

Rose’s first year of eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame would have come in December 1991, two years after former MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti and Rose agreed to his ban from the sport. 

Since the Hall of Fame has been following MLB’s lead with all of the players on the latter’s permanently ineligible list, Rose’s plea feels like another Hail Mary in an effort to get the all-time hit king into Cooperstown, New York.

Rose was inducted into the Reds’ Hall of Fame in June during a pregame ceremony in which his No. 14 jersey was retired. 

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MLB hits king Pete Rose is suing the man who is partly responsible for his banishment from baseball, as the former Cincinnati Reds superstar alleges that he was defamed in a radio interview.

According to Mark Scolforo of the Associated Press, Rose is suing attorney John Dowd for saying that one of the former Reds manager’s associates claimed that Rose raped underage girls during spring training.

The interview took place last year on WCHE-AM in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and Rose’s lawsuit states that the allegations damaged his reputation and limited his endorsement opportunities.

Dowd’s investigative report found that Rose had bet on baseball, and that directly led to him getting banned for life by Major League Baseball in 1989.

Despite his 4,256 career hits and .303 lifetime average, Rose remains out of the Baseball Hall of Fame due to his standing with the MLB.

Rose’s most recent reinstatement bid was denied by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in December.

Despite his continued banishment, the 75-year-old Rose’s No. 14 jersey was officially retired by the Reds this season, and he was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame.

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As Ichiro Suzuki approaches the hallowed number of 4,256 career hits, Pete Rose does not sound like a man ready to abdicate his throne as baseball’s all-time hits king.

“It sounds like in Japan,’’ Rose told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, “they’re trying to make me the Hit Queen. I’m not trying to take anything away from Ichiro, he’s had a Hall of Fame career, but the next thing you know, they’ll be counting his high school hits.”

Suzuki, playing for the Miami Marlins in his 16th MLB season, enters Tuesday night’s game against the San Diego Padres with 4,255 career hits. He’s recorded 2,977 hits in MLB and had 1,278 in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league before coming stateside. 

Rose said Suzuki’s accomplishment cannot be seen in the same light due to NPB’s competition level.

“I don’t think you’re going to find anybody with credibility say that Japanese baseball is equivalent to Major League Baseball,” Rose said. “There are too many guys that fail here, and then become household names there, like Tuffy Rhodes. How can he not do anything here, and hit (a record-tying) 55 home runs (in 2001) over there? It has something to do with the caliber of personnel.”

It is true MLB will not acknowledge Suzuki as the sport’s all-time hit king after he records the two more hits necessary to pass Rose. The former Cincinnati Reds star, banned from the sport and Hall of Fame due to gambling on baseball during his managerial career, will maintain the record.

Since his ban, Rose has created a cottage industry around his hit-king moniker. His website’s tagline is “Home of the Hit King,” and Rose actively promotes himself as such when making appearances at card shows and other events. To put it another way, Rose stands to make money by keeping his record in as high esteem as possible.

Suzuki, who is hitting a remarkable .350 this season at age 42, refused to delve into the situation.

“I would be happy if people covered it or wrote about it,’’ Suzuki said, per Nightengale, “but I really would not care if it wasn’t a big deal. To be quite honest, I’m just going out and doing what I do. What I care about is my teammates and people close to me celebrating it together, that’s what’s most important to me.”

What can be acknowledged is it’s incredible Suzuki has had this level of longevity. He was 27 years old when he made his MLB debut. He spent a majority of his athletic prime in Japan, where he became a renowned superstar but carried the skepticism of someone who could only star in the “minor” leagues.

Suzuki blasted that narrative immediately, winning the AL Rookie of the Year and MVP in 2001 with the Seattle Mariners. He led the AL in hits seven times, won two batting titles and broke the all-time record for hits in a season (262) in 2004.

And Suzuki has three separate campaigns in which he recorded more hits than Rose’s career high of 230.

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One month before pitchers and catchers report, we’ve still got several things to settle…

1. What’s Up with Cespedes?

While Justin Upton has surfaced, it seems Yoenis Cespedes is stuck somewhere on Mars with Matt Damon. Golfing, maybe.

What gives?

Five months ago, Cespedes was emerging as a last-minute National League MVP candidate. He joined the New York Mets at the trade deadline and immediately rocket-launched them toward the World Series.

Today, Cespedes is more invisible than Punxsutawney Phil.

Will he emerge this week? Next week? By, ahem, Groundhog Day (Feb. 2 for all you non-believers)?

The icing of Cespedes is freeze-drying into perhaps the winter’s biggest story. While Upton found a soft landing in Detroit on a six-year, $132 million deal, the man who hit a combined 35 homers with 105 RBI and a .328 on-base percentage in Detroit and New York last summer continues to scan Craigslist.

For one thing, Cespedes last summer landed at the wrong place at the wrong time. He probably could have parlayed his second-half World Series charge into untold riches in nearly any other market. Popular demand would have pressured the club to keep him. But in New York, where Mets ownership has been off balance since the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, the Mets continue to toss nickels around like one of George Halas’ (Mike Ditka’s?) manhole covers.

“The Mets are a debacle right now,” one agent told Bleacher Report. “It’s a shame that family still owns the team.”

The Mets telegraphed at season’s end the fact that they probably wouldn’t be players for Cespedes on a long-term deal, so their lack of engagement this winter is not surprising. Most projections going into this winter pegged Cespedes for roughly a six-year deal around $140 million, which would be just a bit more than Upton got from Detroit this week.

But other than a sudden interest by Baltimore last week, there hasn’t been much noise around Cespedes. And the Orioles’ interest in hindsight appeared to be simply a maneuver to roust slugger Chris Davis, who agreed with the Orioles on a seven-year, $161 million deal over the weekend.

One major league executive believes clubs like Cespedes more on a short-term deal than on a multiyear contract because of concern with how he will produce long-term.

The fact that Cespedes has played for four teams in the past four years also adds intrigue.

“The pattern has been real good initially, then some form of backing up as it goes along,” an American League executive told Bleacher Report.

“When this guy is engaged, he’s a terrific player. When he is not, he lacks the effort on defense and the at-bats aren’t as good. He has been streaky, which is not abnormal for power hitters, but the at-bats weren’t as good the longer he was somewhere.”

After Cespedes hit .287/.337/.604 with 17 homers and 44 RBI in just 57 games with the Mets last summer to lead them to the NL East title, his autumn turned weird. He became embroiled in a mini-controversy on the day of Game 4 of the NL Championship Series when, after he left the game with a sore left shoulder, it was revealed that he was seen playing golf in Chicago the morning of the game.

Then he left Game 5 of the World Series in severe pain after fouling a ball off his left knee.

As for the golf, it turned out that it was business as usual for Cespedes. He’s become hooked on the game, playing often during the season, to the point where Mets hitting coach Kevin Long last summer would ask Cespedes when he arrived at the park whether he played golf that day. And if he had, Long smiled.

“If he played golf, most of the time he hits a home run,” Long told the Wall Street Journal.

But the autumn issues may have left a lasting memory that carried into winter negotiations as well.

“Obviously, how things went in the playoffs didn’t help,” the AL executive said. “Taking himself out of the clincher with the Cubs early in the game, then [being] seen in the dugout with goggles around his neck wasn’t a good look.”

Recent industry speculation included the Tigers, but they opted for Upton. The Orioles are out after signing Davis.

The Los Angeles Angels clearly need a left fielder. Though owner Arte Moreno has steadfastly maintained he prefers to remain under the luxury-tax threshold of $189 million, if Cespedes is to get a monster contract, the Halos are one of the few organizations left that could afford it. On the other hand, Albert Pujols already is weighing down the franchise with a long-term deal, and they just got out from under another bad contract in Josh Hamilton, so there could be some aversion to romancing Cespedes long-term.

The St. Louis Cardinals, after losing Jason Heyward, have a need. So do the Houston Astros. And Cespedes would bolster a Chicago White Sox lineup big-time.

The Washington Nationals, who struck late for ace Max Scherzer last January, also are thought to be considering a similar late-winter strike this year for Cespedes.

“There are a lot of yellow flags around him,” the executive said. “Not the dark red ones, but caution flags.

“I don’t think he is a star. He’s a very good major-league talent. But he disappears too often.”

He has absolutely disappeared this winter.

When he will re-emerge has become the most interesting question of all.

2. Mike Ilitch Does It Again

Justin Upton can be an impact bat in the middle of the order, and if Victor Martinez, J.D. Martinez and Miguel Cabrera can stay healthy, the Tigers have a chance to recapture the division title from Kansas City in an AL Central that gets more intriguing each week.

Whether Upton does or doesn’t work out, though, say this: Detroit’s owner Mike Ilitch is the kind of owner every fan has to wish his or her team had. Year after year, Ilitch has laid out millions in pursuit of the one goal that continues to drive him, bringing a World Series title to Detroit for the first time since 1984.

From Pudge Rodriguez to Miguel Cabrera to Justin Verlander to Prince Fielder to Jordan Zimmermann (and beyond), Ilitch has thrown money at one star after another. In that regard, he’s reminiscent of the late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who poured every ounce of energy he had, year after year, into attempting to bring New York a Yankees World Series title.

While teams in larger markets continue to do calisthenics to avoid going over the $189 million luxury-tax threshold (the Yankees, ironically, and the Angels, to name two), Ilitch thinks nothing of it.

3. Of Tanks and No Arms Race

As we edge closer to the glorious sunshine and pitchers and catchers reporting to camps in Arizona and Florida, some serious questions are on the horizon in the National League.

Mainly, spring training, that time of hope and optimism, isn’t going to bring what it once brought to several National League clubs. And how damaging might that be to the integrity of the game?

Friend Jayson Stark over at ESPN.com wrote a riveting piece on the subject last week, noting that at least four teams (Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Brewers and Atlanta Braves) and possibly as many as six (Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres) are shifting into, basically, non-compete mode while rebuilding.

It was bad enough when the Houston Astros stripped things down to the studs and foundation a few years ago, losing at least 106 games in each of three consecutive seasons (2011-13).

The Cubs caused some grumbling as well in the early years of the Theo Epstein regime, finishing fifth in the NL Central for five consecutive seasons.

Now, with both the Cubs and Astros roaring back in 2015 and boasting some of the game’s best young talent, enough other clubs appear to be following suit that baseball might wind up with an embarrassing situation sooner rather than later.

“I think it’s a problem for the sport,” an executive for an American League contender told Stark, speaking of the NL. “I think the whole system is screwed up, because I think it actually incentivizes not winning. And that’s a big issue going forward.”

At the very least, it is an issue baseball must closely watch. As things stand now, it’s good to be a member of the NL Central and NL East—because only three of the five clubs in each of those divisions really are trying to compete in 2016.

In the NL East, you’ve got the Mets, Marlins and Nationals on one side, while the Braves and Phillies are stripping things down.

In the NL Central, you’ve got the Cardinals, Cubs and Pirates with chances to win, while the Brewers and Reds will resemble Triple-A outfits.

Given that clubs face each other 19 times because of the unbalanced schedule, that’s a lot of extra wins the front three clubs in each of those divisions will pick up. Enough, probably, to guarantee that the two NL wild-card teams likely will come from the East and the Central, not the NL West.

Commissioner Rob Manfred told Stark that rebuilding is just part of the cyclical nature of the game.

“Obviously, you don’t want to have too many teams in a rebuilding cycle at one time in one league, and I accept that,” Manfred said. “But the fact of the matter is, when you have 30 teams, it’s not unusual that you have five or six in a rebuilding cycle. I think if you look back historically, that would not be a number that’s out of line.”

That the Astros and Cubs had so much success with their dramatic rebuilds is to each of their credits, of course.

It just becomes a problem if the rebuilding highways become gridlocked with copycats.

4. Where Have You Gone, Mariano Rivera?

Yankees GM Brian Cashman says newly acquired flamethrower Aroldis Chapman will head into spring training as the team’s closer, because that’s where he adds “max value.”

However they divvy up the work, there’s no question the Yankees should be awesome in the late innings with Chapman, Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller aboard.

There’s also no question that Mariano Rivera is becoming smaller and smaller in that rear-view mirror. As statistics whiz Bill Chuck points out, Chapman could give the Yankees their fifth different saves leader in the past five seasons in 2016: Rafael Soriano (42) in 2012 (the year Rivera missed most of the season with a knee injury), Rivera (44) in 2013, David Robertson (39) in 2014 and Andrew Miller (36) in 2015.

5. The World Champs Get Better

Make no mistake: Ian Kennedy is not David Price or Zack Greinke. It’s not like the Kansas City Royals signed a guy who will become a favorite to win a Cy Young Award.

But in agreeing to terms with Kennedy on a five-year, $70 million deal, the Royals unquestionably took a step in the right direction after losing Johnny Cueto to free agency.

Kennedy is coming off a down season in San Diego but should be able to give Kansas City exactly what James Shields did a couple of years ago: a summer of 200 innings and a solid veteran rotation presence.

He surrendered a career-high 31 homers last season, which is saying something given that he pitched some of his early years in hitter-friendly Arizona. But from that perspective, Kansas City is a good landing spot: Kauffman Stadium was the most difficult park in the American League to homer in last summer, surrendering an average of 1.60 homers per game.

It’s also hard not to look at Kennedy’s splits last year and give him the benefit of the doubt that an Opening Day hamstring pull threw him off balance during the first half of 2015. Before the All-Star break, he went 4-9 with a 4.91 ERA and 20 homers allowed in 84.1 innings pitched in 16 starts. After the break, he went 5-6 with a 3.64 ERA and 11 homers allowed in 84 innings pitched.

6. Free-Agent Rankings

Here’s my weekly take as agents bluster, suitors cluster and bean counters muster the courage to write those checks as the winter (gulp) deepens…

1. Yoenis Cespedes: A guy needs to know where to schedule his tee times this summer.

2. Dexter Fowler: C’mon, Joe Maddon will even write a letter of recommendation.

3. Howie Kendrick: The last second baseman the Dodgers jettisoned went on to win the NL batting title. But Kendrick is no Dee Gordon.

4. Yovani Gallardo: The leftover bin of starting pitchers remains pretty well stocked.

5. Doug Fister: One year ago, he was slated to be part of one of the greatest rotations in recent memory. Cough, cough.

7. Pete Rose in the Hall

Yes, the news bulletin you saw Tuesday is true: Pete Rose is going to the Hall of Fame.

The Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame.

Not only that, the club will retire his No. 14 during the Reds’ Hall of Fame Induction Weekend, June 24-26.

Good for them, and good for MLB for allowing this to happen.

While it is true that Rose is banned from the Baseball Hall of Fame for being on the game’s suspended list, individual club Halls of Fame are a different, more localized version. They don’t necessarily have to play by the same rules as they do in Cooperstown.

Reds owner Bob Castellini said in a statement Tuesday that this will be “a defining moment in the 147-year history of this storied franchise. He is one of the greatest players to ever wear a Reds uniform and it will be an unforgettable experience watching him be honored as such.”

Incidentally, word of the honor did reach Cooperstown. And not everyone there is opposed to this, or even greater honors, for Rose:

8. The Mo-Man Reappears, Long Live the Mo-Man!

There is only one Mo-Man, the long-retired Mike Morgan, who pitched for 12 teams (then a record) between 1978 and 2002.

The fourth overall pick by Oakland in the 1978 draft, he went straight to the majors, never looked back and pretty much had a rubber arm the entire way through. I came across him in Minnesota when he was playing for the Twins and I was covering them. He had a very unique way of viewing the world and of speaking.

What I most remember is when he had a poor start. He’d meet the media afterward, shrug and simply say, “Bob Seger, man.” That was his code for one of Seger’s most well-known songs: “Turn the Page.” Yep, forget about a bad start, turn the page and get ’em next time.

There were dozens more just like that.

Now 56, Morgan has been gone for a while: When there was no interest in him following the 2002 season, he went home to Utah, hurt (not physically—his feelings were hurt) and went into a sort of self-exile.

He reappeared at the Diamondbacks’ fantasy camp last week.

“I can still throw seven days a week,” he told MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert. “I can still throw the hammer [curveball]. It’s not 12-to-6 anymore, it’s 12-to-3. Four-seamers, two-seamers, sliders.

“I still get guys asking me to throw the hammer so they can see it out of my hand. And I always tell them, ‘Just tell me where to meet you and I’ll come throw to you.'”

9. Farewell, Monte Irvin

One of the first African-Americans to play in the majors and a mentor to the great Willie Mays, Monte Irvin passed away last week in Houston at the age of 96. A Hall of Famer as both a player and a person, Irvin spent three years in the Army during World War II and, as Commissioner Rob Manfred said last week, “was a true leader during a transformational era for our game.”

And, he said this, and amen, amen, amen:

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Week

We’re barely halfway through January and already 2016 has been painful. Last week we lost David Bowie, this week Glenn Frey. Though he’s a little more known, you might say, for his great hits like “Tequila Sunrise” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” there was a time, believe it or not, when Frey wanted to become a baseball broadcaster. Not only does he do so for a day here with Vin Scully in 1985, he gives a tremendous home run call:

 You left us way too soon, Glenn, but thanks for the words and music.

“City girls seem to find out early

“How to open doors with just a smile”

— Eagles, “Lyin’ Eyes”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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Cincinnati Reds legend Pete Rose will be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame this summer. 

The Reds announced his selection Tuesday. The event is scheduled to take place June 24-26.

Cincinnati passed along comments from CEO Bob Castellini, as well as Rick Walls, the executive director of the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum, concerning Rose’s upcoming induction:

Rose later spoke to the media about the honor, joking in regard to the occasion:

Rose also kept the jokes coming when asked what he wanted on his statue, replying,“It sure as hell won’t be me standing at the $2 window at Turfway.”

Rose spent the first 16 seasons of his major league career with the Reds, starting in 1963. After stints with the Philadelphia Phillies and Montreal Expos, he returned to Cincinnati in 1984 to serve as a player-manager en route to becoming MLB‘s all-time hit king.

In all, Rose hit .307 with a .379 on-base percentage, 152 home runs and 146 stolen bases across 19 seasons in Cincinnati. Charlie Hustle also racked up more than 1,700 runs scored and 1,000 runs batted in.

Among the accolades he earned while in a Reds uniform were 13 All-Star Game selections, three batting titles, two Gold Gloves and an MVP and Rookie of the Year award. The team also won two championships during the Big Red Machine era.

“This is the baseball capital of the world,” Rose told reporters. “Why it’s so important for the Reds to do well.”

Rose was eventually banned from baseball for betting on the sport. Current MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred upheld that decision in December, citing past evidence and the former superstar’s decision to keep gambling on the game, albeit legally, to this day, as noted by ESPN.com.

“Mr. Rose’s public and private comments, including his initial admission in 2004, provide me with little confidence that he has a mature understanding of his wrongful conduct, that he has accepted full responsibility for it, or that he understands the damage he has caused,” Manfred wrote in a statement.

Despite that, Rose hasn’t shut the door on the Hall of Fame, telling reporters: “I haven’t given up on Cooperstown—I’m not the type to give up on anything.”

While that decision is a setback in Rose’s efforts to earn a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Reds are letting him take his place among the franchise’s greats. There’s no doubt his performance on the field warranted the selection.

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One day after Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred denied Pete Rose‘s request for reinstatement, the sport’s all-time hits leader held a press conference Tuesday to discuss what happened.

The tone of the press conference was unusual, with Rose and his attorney seemingly trying to make a plea for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to get him on the Hall of Fame ballot, per ESPN.com’s Buster Olney.

It’s important to note that Rose’s being banned from MLB doesn’t make him ineligible for the Hall of Fame. That is a separate entity, and writers voted in 1991 to keep his name off the ballot.

Rose said early in the proceedings that he should hold the office currently occupied by Manfred, per Will Brinson of CBSSports.com:

Per Paul Hagen of MLB.com, Manfred released a statement that went into detail about where Rose failed to meet the necessary requirements for reinstatement:

Mr. Rose has not presented credible evidence of a reconfigured life either by an honest acceptance by him of his wrongdoing, so clearly established by the Dowd Report, or by a rigorous, self-aware and sustained program of avoidance by him of the circumstances that led to his permanent eligibility in 1989. Absent such credible evidence, allowing him to work in the game presents an unacceptable risk of a future violation by him of Rule 21, and thus to the integrity of our sport.

Rose briefly elaborated on what his meeting with the commissioner was like, per Joe Danneman of Fox 19 in Cincinnati:

Rose added he was as truthful as he could be, via MLB Network Radio:

Rose, who held his press conference in Las Vegas, said he’s now a “recreational gambler, but not a compulsive gambler,” per USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale.

On the subject of performance-enhancing drugs, while Rose said he never saw any teammates taking any substances, he expressed confidence about the abilities of his Reds teams from the mid-’70s, per Nightengale:

Wrapping up his media session, per the Cincinnati Enquirer’s official sports Twitter account, Rose said what he hoped would happen one day:

It’s an unusual comment since MLB has invited Rose to take part in several on-field celebrations, including last summer during All-Star festivities in Cincinnati, but the 74-year-old clearly hopes for greater inclusion.

Unfortunately for Rose, it doesn’t seem like his 26-year ban from the sport is going to end anytime soon. He presented his case to Manfred, who has been in office less than one year, and it was rejected for reasons outlined by the commissioner.

Even though there is a large swath of the MLB fanbase that wants Rose to at least have a shot at the Baseball Hall of Fame, his odds continue to look long.

MLB has given Rose a small platform to get his adoration from those fans, and that seems to be as far as the doors will ever open.

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Presidential candidate Donald Trump has turned plenty of heads during the election season with controversial comments and stances, and his opinions reached the world of sports Monday. 

Trump weighed in on Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred’s decision regarding Pete Rose’s baseball ban:

According to James Pilcher of Cincinnati.com, Manfred issued a statement Monday that rejected Rose’s reinstatement plea. Manfred did so through “a four-page decision that showed Rose continues to bet on baseball and failed to disclose that to the commissioner in September until pressed.”

The lifetime ban was initially put in place in 1989 after the former Cincinnati Reds superstar gambled as the manager of the team. Pilcher also said the implications of Manfred’s ruling would determine Rose’s Hall of Fame chances: “As a practical matter, the decision keeps Rose from being eligible for the Hall of Fame.”

In light of that, it’s worth noting MLB did not actually reject Rose from the Hall of Fame like Trump implied, but rather upheld the ban that kept him ineligible.

Rose is the all-time MLB hit king with 4,256 career base knocks. He was a 17-time All-Star, the 1973 National League MVP and won three batting titles. He was even a two-time Gold Glove winner and won three World Series titles during his spectacular career.      

On paper, he would be a surefire Hall of Fame inductee, but his gambling past and present continue to stand in his way.

If it were up to Trump, that would no longer be the case.

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Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred won’t lift the lifetime ban for all-time hits leader Pete Rose, informing him both over the phone and in writing, according to MLB.com.

Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times and T.J. Quinn of ESPN.com also reported Rose wouldn’t be reinstated Monday.

In his decision, Manfred said he had “little confidence that [Rose] has a mature understanding of his wrongful conduct, that he has accepted full responsibility for it, or that he understands the damage he has caused.

“In short, Mr. Rose has not presented credible evidence of a reconfigured life.”

Manfred also expressed concern that Rose continues to bet on horses and sports, including baseball.

Reds president and CEO Bob Castellini later released a statement on the decision:

The Commissioner called me this morning prior to the announcement. We respect his decision on the matter of Pete Rose and are grateful for his diligence and the amount of time he spent on the matter. We also appreciate that Commissioner stated that HOF consideration is a separate issue and we and the fans think he deserves that opportunity. We are pleased that we have had and will continue to have opportunities to commemorate Pete’s remarkable on-field accomplishments. Any future plans to celebrate Pete’s career with the Reds first will be discussed with the Commissioner and then will be communicated publicly at the appropriate time. 

Manfred didn’t see a conflict of interest with MLB‘s relationship with daily fantasy sports and doesn’t consider it gambling, according to Quinn. 

Rose, baseball’s all-time leader in hits, has been banned from baseball since 1989, when the MLB determined he bet on games while he was the manager of the Reds. Rose has repeatedly applied for reinstatement to the game, though he continued to deny he bet on baseball until 2004, when he released an autobiography in which he came clean.

Evidence that Rose also bet on the game as a player, including an extensive Outside the Lines report in June, has continued to mount over the years and damaged Rose’s chances for reinstatement. 

Rose, 74, finished his career with an MLB-record 4,256 hits. He was a lifetime .303 hitter who added 160 home runs, 1,314 RBI, 2,165 runs and 198 stolen bases in 24 seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies and, briefly, the Montreal Expos. He won three batting titles, three World Series titles and was selected to 17 All-Star Games.

He was one of the finest players in the game’s history, but Manfred’s decision is a major blow to Rose ever being reinstated to the game. Manfred had made it a point to hear Rose’s case when he was appointed to be commissioner and said Rose “deserves a fair, full hearing,” in April, per NBC News’ Chuck Todd (via Anthony McCarron of the New York Daily News).

That the result of that hearing was Rose remaining banned from the game makes it all the more unlikely that Rose will ever be reinstated during his lifetime.

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Former Cincinnati Reds star Pete Rose met with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred on Thursday to discuss possible reinstatement to baseball. Manfred told him to expect a ruling by the end of the year.

T.J. Quinn of ESPN’s Outside the Lines confirmed the meeting took place at league headquarters. He noted Rose, who admitted to betting on baseball, made his case to get removed from the ineligible list, but a source told OTL it’s “unlikely” the commissioner will rule in his favor.

MLB Communications provided a statement on the meeting:

Manfred discussed the Rose situation during an appearance on Thursday’s episode of The Dan Patrick Show, apparently before the meeting took place. He explained what his expectations would be when he spoke with the league’s all-time hits leader, as noted by Bob Hille of Sporting News.

“I think truthfulness is sort of the bedrock of every relationship,” Manfred said. “I think it would be a mistake for Pete to come in and do anything other than tell me everything and the complete truth with respect to everything.”

The commissioner also stated that part of the difficulty is understanding reinstatement goes beyond making Rose eligible for the Hall of Fame.

“My issue is, if I take him off the permanently ineligible list next week, someone could hire him next week for a job in baseball. That’s the issue I have in front of me,” he said. “I see that question very different from the question, ‘Should he be in the Hall of Fame based on what he did as a player and a manager?'”

He also explained his decision wouldn’t obligate the Baseball Hall of Fame to place Rose on future ballots, should he be granted reinstatement.

Manfred previously looked into the reinstatement case for “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who was banned as a result of the Black Sox Scandal. Though Jackson’s role in the situation has been debated over the years, the commissioner denied the request, standing by the decisions made by his predecessors.

While there’s no doubt Rose has a Hall of Fame resume based on his on-field production, the question is whether Manfred can look past the betting admission. His comments make it clear he was hesitant to make such a leap, at least before speaking with Rose.

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Among other things, the 2015 MLB All-Star Game was to be a celebration of baseball’s all-time hit king. Though still banned from baseball for life, Pete Rose had been permitted to be part of the show for the hometown fans at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park.

But so much for that. According to the latest news, now is not a time for celebrating Rose.

On Monday, William Weinbaum and T.J. Quinn of ESPN’s Outside the Lines dropped a bombshell. Though it was already common knowledge that Rose had bet on baseball while he was managing the Cincinnati Reds, a crime that earned him a lifetime banishment in 1989, new evidence has emerged that Rose gambled on baseball while he was a player as well.

This new evidence exists in the form of pages from a notebook seized from one of Rose’s former associates. Their content includes Rose’s betting records from March through July of his final season as a player in 1986. And though they show no evidence that Rose bet against the Reds, they do show that he didn’t refrain from betting on games he was playing in.

Gut, meet punch.

It took until 2004 for Rose to admit that he had bet on games as a manager. But in the years since, he’s repeatedly insisted that he never bet on games as a player. So if nothing else, Monday’s report is the latest reminder that Rose is an incorrigible liar who has little interest in owning up to his misdeeds.

That’s a bad look. But incredibly, it gets worse.

John Dowd, the former federal prosecutor who led MLB’s initial investigation into Rose’s gambling back in the ’80s, called the uncovered documents “the final piece of the puzzle on a New York betting operation with organized crime,” per Weinbaum and Quinn’s report.

For Rose himself, they support the charge that he was betting through mob-connected bookies. Knowing that Rose was hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt at the time he was banned in 1989, this means he owed a lot of money to the wrong people.

“The implications for baseball are terrible,” Dowd told Weinbaum and Quinn. “[The mob] had a mortgage on Pete while he was a player and manager.”

Those are some bad implications, all right. And no matter which way you look at this, there’s no ignoring that the timing couldn’t be any worse.

Remember when things were looking up for Rose? You should be able to. All you have to do is think back to what things were like before Monday.

In the wake of Rob Manfred taking over for Bud Selig as MLB’s commissioner in January, Rose officially filed a formal request for reinstatement in March. In response, Manfred vowed to consider Rose’s request “on its merits,” per ESPN.com’s Mark Saxon.

To be sure, that was hardly Manfred making a promise. But it was him leaving the door open, and he seemed to nudge the door open a little wider in late April when he and Reds owner Bob Castellini agreed to allow Rose to have a role in July’s All-Star festivities at Great American Ball Park.

“I’ve agreed with Mr. Castellini that we’re going to have a conversation about what specific kind of participation the Reds are interested in, and we have not had that conversation yet,” Manfred said, per ESPN.com. “You can rest assured that he will be allowed to participate in some of the activities.”

Nothing more specific has come down the pipeline in the ensuing weeks. Either the Reds and Manfred were having trouble agreeing on what role Rose would play, or they did and were simply choosing to keep it under wraps.

Either way, you can’t help but use your imagination.

Perhaps the 2015 All-Star Game could have been for Rose what the 1999 All-Star Game at Fenway Park was for Ted Williams. Not unlike what they did in 2010 when they celebrated his record-setting 4,192nd hit, maybe the Reds would have made Rose the center of attention on the field prior to the game, much to the delight of the many thousands of faithful Reds fans packed into Great American Ball Park.

Even something more subdued than that still could have resulted in Rose stealing the show. As a result, Manfred might have gotten the sense that public opinion was in favor of MLB finally forgiving Rose.

But now? No way. Just no way.

If Rose is still allowed to partake in the All-Star festivities, be it in the spotlight or in the shadows, what might have been a happy occasion will instead be decidedly awkward. Rose’s abilities to put on a brave face and say the right things will be relentlessly tested. For those who still feel like celebrating him, many will have to force smiles.

And then there’s how people outside the ballpark will be reacting. After turning things as trivial as Mariano Rivera not closing out the 2013 All-Star Game and Adam Wainwright grooving a pitch to Derek Jeter in the 2014 All-Star Game into hellfire controversies, you can, ahem, bet that television and social media would rush to get bent out of shape over Rose’s presence at the Midsummer Classic.

As such, it seems likely that Rose’s involvement in the All-Star Game will be scrubbed altogether. After all, the last thing MLB needs at its biggest annual baseball celebration is a public relations nightmare. 

And yet, even keeping Rose out of the proceedings will probably only help so much. This being the year 2015, television and social media surely wouldn’t do MLB the favor of ignoring the Rose story just because he’s not in Cincinnati to put his face to it.

So no matter what happens with Rose, you can expect this latest story to cast a dark cloud over the All-Star Game. For baseball, that means a lost opportunity for what would have essentially been a positive homecoming narrative. Obviously, the same goes for Rose.

Though, what presumably mattered more to Rose was using the All-Star Game to score some points with Manfred. That’s another opportunity that’s been lost, and that’s also a case of bad timing.

As Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reported in late May, Rose and Manfred are set for a face-to-face meeting about his reinstatement sometime after the All-Star Game. Had Monday’s report not surfaced and Rose had gone on to win the crowd at the All-Star Game, that meeting might have pushed Rose’s reinstatement closer to reality than it’s been at any point in the last 26 years.

But since Monday’s report did surface, Rose’s case for reinstatement probably won’t budge an inch in that meeting. Though the latest news doesn’t necessarily make him any guiltier than he already was—Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk and others have noted this—that it exposes his many years of lying about betting on baseball as a player doesn’t do him any favors. He may not be more guilty, but he certainly looks less deserving of forgiveness.

In all, Monday’s report is not a positive development for anyone.

The conversation about Rose had been skewing more toward sympathetic in the wake of his request for reinstatement and the news of his upcoming role at the All-Star Game. Now it’s once again about his being baseball’s ultimate villain, one who has no business being forgiven by anyone. 

This conversation will be front, center and certainly loud during the All-Star Game. For baseball, that will mean unwelcome bad buzz. And for Rose, it could mean whatever hope he had for reinstatement going out the window for good.

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