MLB Upholds Pete Rose's Ban From Baseball

Pete Rose, the player with the most hits in the Major League Baseball history, remains banned from the league, its commissioner announced Monday in denying Rose's appeal to be reinstated to the game after 26 years.

A Cincinnati Reds legend, Rose agreed to a lifetime ban from the league after an MLB investigation found he bet on baseball games as a player and manager. He denied the allegations for years, until admitting in a 2004 autobiography that he bet on the Reds while managing the team.

The suspension went into effect in August 1989. Rose violated Rule 21, which covers misconduct and says that any player, club official or other person associated with the league who bets on a baseball game they are connected to is permanently ineligible.

"During our meeting, Mr. Rose told me that he has continued to bet on horse racing and on professional sports, including Baseball," Commissioner Robert Manfred Jr. said in his ruling. "Those bets may have been permitted by law in the jurisdictions in which they were placed, but this fact does not mean that the best would be permissible if made by a player or manager."

Manfred said it's an unacceptable risk to reinstate Rose under those circumstances.

But the commissioner said that Rose's standing with baseball's Hall of Fame is a separate matter. He's currently ineligible to be considered for the ballot.

Rose's attorneys told Manfred in February that "Rose had accepted responsibility for his mistakes and their consequences," and that Rose was sorry for betting on baseball games, according to the ruling, and the attorneys said Rose "'reconfigured' his life."

But Manfred upheld the findings of the league's 1989 investigation into Rose's alleged betting, according to the ruling, and confirmed an ESPN report this summer that found Rose bet on games in 1986.

The AP's Joe Kay contributed to this report.

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