Pete Rose was banned from the MLB 25 years ago by commissioner Bart Giamatti after the league found the all-time hits leader guilty of gambling on baseball. In 1990, the year after Rose was sentenced, the Hall of Fame added a clause to its eligibility rules that prohibited banned players from being inducted.
In order to participate in ANY event associated with Major League Baseball, Rose needs clearance from the commissioner, which he's been granted on a couple of occasions. He was permitted to make an on-field appearance to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his 4,190th hit, which broke Ty Cobb's previous all-time record, and also when he was named to the MLB's All-Century team.
Rose has applied for reinstatement back in September of 1997, but commissioner Bud Selig never made a ruling on the application despite meeting with him in 2002. Selig has been a no-nonsense commissioner, hiring former U.S. Senator Geroge J. Mitchell to investigate steroid use in the MLB and then swiftly dealing with the Biogenesis Scandal in 2013, after which he suspended 14 players. Gambling is explicitly a violation of the MLB's rules and regulations, so Selig obviously didn't support Rose's return.
"It's under advisement. My standard line," Selig said in July, via this ESPN article. "I'm the judge, and that's where it will stay. Nothing new in that statement, I understand."
But Rose is still optimistic about his chances of getting reinstated and eventually inducted into the Hall of Fame. Although he finally admitted that he gambled on baseball in 2004 after 15 years of denying it, baseball fans still very much adore Rose, and other MLB figures even think he should be reinstated. And now that Bud Selig is stepping down in January to be replaced by Rob Manfred, there could be an outside chance the 73-year-old Rose gets his ban reversed.
"Yes ... sure," Rose said in an interview with "CBS Sunday Morning" when asked if he'll make the HOF. "I don't know if I'm going to live to see it. Someone, at some period of time, will feel it in their heart to give me a second chance. I might be six feet under, but that's what you have to live with."
Nonetheless, Rose is still regarded as one of the best-players in the history of the game, and even if he doesn't get inducted into the Hall of Fame by the MLB, he'll remain a Hall of Famer in the minds of many.
