Major League Baseball reinstated Pete Rose from the permanently ineligible list this week, but ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith thinks it may not have entirely been MLB’s doing.
ESPN made headlines on Tuesday when it reported that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred had removed Rose, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, and others from the league’s permanently ineligible list. This makes all of those players eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
The league placed Rose on the list in 1989 after an investigation revealed that he had bet on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds.
On Wednesday’s edition of the Stephen A. Smith Show, the ESPN hot-take artist said that Rose should have been removed from the ineligible list long ago, and that MLB had inducted people with worse transgressions into the Hall of Fame in the past.
However, Smith suggested that MLB’s decision to remove Rose from the list may have been influenced by someone in a higher position of authority.
“And now you know what else we’re hearing?” Smith said. “That the reason Rob Manfred may have come — we’re not sure — but may have come to this decision is because President Trump was pressuring him to do so, because he’s been wanted Pete Rose taken off of that ineligibility list and ultimately inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. So, now we’re political now. We had a conversation with the president, and now we made this decision.
“Let’s keep our eyes on what President Trump does on behalf of Major League Baseball down the line, because if it’s anything, then that would mean baseball really didn’t do this out of the kindness of its heart. They did it because they were expecting a favor in return.”