Pete Rose Seeks Reinstatement Amidst Sign-Stealing Scandal

Amidst allegations of sign-stealing, Pete Rose, former MLB player and manager of the Cincinnati Reds, has sent a petition to the MLB commissioner’s office arguing for an end to his 30 and a half-year ban. This came as a result of him gambling on baseball games while he was manager.

In 1989, Rose was permanently banned from baseball by then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti. An investigation by John Dowd, the special counsel to the MLB, showed that Rose had illegally wagered with bookmakers on MLB games, including his own Reds.

For years, Rose had denied that he had bet on baseball, but in his book, “My Prison Without Bars,” he admits to wagering on games.

Rose and his lawyers have argued that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has recently opted to not punish players found guilty of major game-changing rules infractions and say that Rose’s ban is “vastly disproportionate” to punishments for players accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs, and now, the sign stealing schemes by the 2017 Houston Astros.

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“There cannot be one set of rules for Mr. Rose and another for everyone else,” the petition states. “No objective standard or categorization of the rules violations committed by Mr. Rose can distinguish his violations from those that have incurred substantially less severe penalties from Major League Baseball.”

Examples of his argument are seen with the Astros, where manager AJ Hinch and general manager Jeff Lehnow were suspended for one year and the team was fined $5 million, as well as the reinstatement of Jenrry Mejia, who was permanently banned from baseball after testing positive for anabolic steroids the third time.

“It’s in the best interest of baseball to not have as its legacy that Pete Rose is being treated grossly differently than every other player in its history, with the exception of ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson and the Chicago Black Sox,” Rose’s lawyer Mark Rosenbaum said. “I don’t think there has been an athlete in any sport in history who has fallen more steeply and more of a distance for a longer period of time than Pete Rose has.”

The petition was also filed with the Hall of Fame seeking for the ban to end so Rose could be considered for induction.

Time will tell if the all-time hits leader will have his ban removed and if the MLB with stay consistent with punishments dealt out for all violations.