AILSA CHANG, HOST:
On the field, Pete Rose was a star.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: From Show - into left center.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: There it is. Rose has a good stop.
CHANG: Rose amassed the most hits of any Major League Baseball player, a record that he still holds today. But Rose's legacy has been mired in controversy. He was banned from the MLB for life in 1989 for betting on games as a manager and player, essentially dashing any hopes of him making it into the Hall of Fame. Well, this week, bans on Rose and 16 others were lifted. In a surprise decision, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred decided that deceased players should be removed from the league's ineligible list. Rose died last September. What is the impact of this decision and what does it mean for Pete Rose's legacy? Keith O'Brien is the author of "Charlie Hustle: The Rise And Fall Of Pete Rose And The Last Glory Days Of Baseball." He joins us again. Welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
KEITH O'BRIEN: Great to be with you, Ailsa.
CHANG: Great to have you. OK, so first, do you have a sense of what might have led the MLB to make this decision?
O'BRIEN: Well, I think first and most importantly, it was Pete Rose's death. You know, when I was reporting my book, I did get access to Rose for a while. And he told me then, way back in 2021, he predicted that when he died, he would be removed from baseball's ineligible list. And I believe Pete knew this because at times, over the course of his life, he was his own worst enemy. He would self-sabotage again and again. The second thing is his family, you know, applied for his reinstatement. And the third thing - not insignificant - is that President Trump began to call for a federal pardon of Pete Rose, which I think placed some pressure on Major League Baseball to do something.
CHANG: Yeah.
O'BRIEN: So I think all three of those things created the momentum for this significant sea change in Major League Baseball's policy.
CHANG: Well, given the past conversations you personally had with Rose, what was your own reaction when you first heard this news that Rose is going to be eligible for the Hall of Fame?
O'BRIEN: I have learned to not be surprised about anything...
CHANG: (Laughter).
O'BRIEN: ...When it comes to the story of Pete Rose. That said, Ailsa, I was still stunned. It was a stunning development, a certainly historic development. And it has changed what has long been a hypothetical debate about Pete Rose and his legacy and the Hall of Fame into a real and raging debate about Pete Rose and his legacy and the Hall of Fame.
CHANG: Do you feel that gambling has been seen as a special kind of sin in baseball, more than, say, taking steroids? And if so, if gambling is its own special sin, why is that?
O'BRIEN: In baseball, gambling has always been its own special sin, and it goes back to the 1920s. You know, after that 1919 scandal involving the Chicago White Sox, which conspired to throw games for money, there were a handful of other gambling scandals involving Major League stars in the 1920s. And so it did make it a special sin, even worse, say, than the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Now, that era gutted the hallowed records held by the all-time greats. It fundamentally changed the game, how players swung their bats. It fundamentally changed the statistics, made the games slower. I think you can make an argument that the steroid era did far greater damage to the game than either scandal involving Pete Rose or the 1919 White Sox.
CHANG: Keith O'Brien is the author of "Charlie Hustle: The Rise And Fall Of Pete Rose And The Last Glory Days Of Baseball." Thank you so much for coming on again, Keith.
O'BRIEN: Thank you for having me, Ailsa.
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