BREAKING: Pete Rose Files Reinstatement Petition After Astros Cheating Scandal

February 5, 2020, 1:22pm EST (Updated: January 4, 2023, 8:11pm)By Darrelle Lincoln

Much like everybody who isn’t an Astros fan, Pete Rose watched in amazement as Major League Baseball levied punishments to the franchise that resulted in the suspension and subsequent firings of the team’s manager and GM, but nothing was done to any of the players.

For that reason, Rose has filed a petition to Major League Baseball asking the commissioner’s office to remove him from the league’s ineligible list in the wake of the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, according to ESPN.

“Rose and his lawyers argue that Manfred has recently opted not to punish players guilty of major game-changing rules infractions and, as a result, should end Rose’s 30½-year ban for gambling on baseball while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
The lawyers say that Rose’s lifetime ban is “vastly disproportionate” when compared with MLB’s punishments of players who took performance-enhancing drugs and the players involved in the sign-stealing schemes by the 2017 Houston Astros.
“There cannot be one set of rules for Mr. Rose and another for everyone else,” Rose’s 20-page petition for reinstatement says. “No objective standard or categorization of the rules violations committed by Mr. Rose can distinguish his violations from those that have incurred substantially less severe penalties from Major League Baseball.”

Rose is also said to be seeking a meeting with Manfred.

It was back in 1989 when Rose was permanently banned from baseball by then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti.

In August of that same year, Rose signed an agreement accepting an indefinite suspension from baseball, though he did not admit to violating Section D of MLB’s Rule 21, which prohibits players and others involved with the game from betting on baseball.