Pete Rose on Reinstatement Chances: ‘I’m Not Going to Make Any Odds’

“I’m the one that screwed up,” Pete Rose told Fox’s Ken Rosenthal at the All-Star Game. “So, I can’t get mad at anybody that I’m not where I belong.”

Rose belonged in Cincinnati last night. The city’s fans gave the former player and manager a rousing ovation when he took the field with teammates Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench, and player Barry Larkin as the greatest living “Franchise Four” players in Reds history. Craig Calcaterra of NBCSports.com timed the ovation at 1:24.

“Well, just walking out there with Bench and Morgan—of course Larkin, my only player to date that made the Hall of Fame that I managed, I brought him up—some of the greats in the history of baseball,” said of his moment under the lights. “This is the baseball capital of the world. Fans are great.”

Rose finally enjoyed a brief meeting with the commissioner of baseball. He said he thanked Rob Manfred for allowing him to participate in the festivities in his hometown. They discussed Manfred’s hometown of Rome, New York, which Rose knew as a minor leaguer when he played in Geneva. And Rose kidded Manfred for arriving late when Rose broke Stan Musial’s National League hits mark back in the 1980s.

Banned from baseball in 1989 for gambling as the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, Rose seeks reinstatement to work in the game at the major-league level and to win consideration from the Baseball Writers Association of America for the Hall of Fame.

“I’m just happy that he’s willing to review my status,” Rose told Rosenthal. “When I sit down with him, I’ll tell him everything I did as a player and as a manager. We’ll go from there. I’ll be as honest as I can with him.”

The former degenerate gambler quipped about his chances for reinstatement, “I’m not going to make any odds.”