EXPLAINER
Major League Baseball reinstates two of the sport’s great players, making them Hall of Fame eligible.
Pete Rose and “Shoeless Joe” Jackson have been reinstated by Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Rob Manfred, making both eligible for the sport’s Hall of Fame after their careers were tarnished by gambling scandals.
Rose’s permanent ban was lifted on Tuesday, eight months after his death and a day before the Cincinnati Reds honour baseball’s career hits leader with Pete Rose Night.
Manfred announced he was changing the league’s policy on permanent ineligibility, saying bans would expire at death.
Here is all to know about the MLB lifting the ban on two of baseball’s all-time great players:
Why were Rose and Jackson banned?
Rose and Jackson were considered longstanding pariahs in Major League Baseball due to their gambling on the sport.
Jackson was a member of the Chicago White Sox team that were accused of conspiring with gamblers to purposely lose the 1919 World Series.
He accepted $5,000 to throw the series, which the Cincinnati Reds won. Eight players from that White Sox team, despite avoiding criminal charges, were banned from organised baseball in 1921.
Rose was caught betting on games while manager of the Cincinnati Reds and was barred for life from baseball by Commissioner Bart Giamatti in 1989.
How good were Rose and Jackson?
Jackson’s phenomenal career batting average of .356 is the fourth highest in MLB history. Later, after he was banned from the majors, he played baseball under assumed names in southern leagues in the United States.
Jackson died in 1951 but remains one of baseball’s most recognisable names in part for his depiction by actor Ray Liotta in the 1989 movie Field of Dreams.
Rose set MLB career records for hits (4,256), games played (3,562) and at-bats (14,053) – among others – and finished with a .303 career batting average. He won the World Series three times, twice with the Reds and once with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Rose also won three batting titles, two Gold Glove Awards, the National League Rookie of the Year and the National League Most Valuable Player.
Rose died on September 30 aged 83.
Did Trump’s pardon post influence Rose’s MLB reinstatement?
Rose’s supporters have included US President Donald Trump, who expressed on social media in March that he intends to pardon Rose posthumously. Trump didn’t specify what a Rose pardon would be for, but he was sentenced to five months in prison for submitting falsified tax returns in 1990.
Manfred discussed Rose with Trump when the pair met in April, but he hasn’t disclosed specifics of their conversation other than they discussed Rose’s eligibility for reinstatement into the league.
Was Trump’s pardon post two months earlier behind the MLB’s decision on Tuesday to lift the bans on Rose and Jackson?
The MLB would point to its in-house disciplinary procedures as the only way for disgraced players to be formally reinstated into the league.
When is the earliest Rose and Jackson could go into the Hall of Fame?
Rose and Jackson won’t be eligible to come up for a vote until the Hall of Fame’s Classic Era Baseball committee meets in December 2027.
The committee is responsible for voting on individuals who made their biggest impact in baseball before 1980.
