Should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame?

President Trump recently posted on social media that he plans to posthumously pardon Pete Rose and advocated for Major League Baseball (MLB) to rescind Rose’s lifetime ban from the Hall of Fame (HOF).

Rose was one of the greatest players in the history of the league:

• He is the all-time MLB leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053), singles (3,215), and outs (10,328).
• He won three World Series rings, three batting titles, one Most Valuable Player Award, two Gold Gloves, and Rookie of the Year.
• He made seventeen all-star appearances at an unequaled five positions (second baseman, left fielder, right fielder, third baseman, and first baseman).

How is a player like this not in HOF?

In one word: gambling.

Why he is banned from the Hall of Fame

The Athletic has a lengthy article explaining Rose’s situation in detail. To summarize:

Major League Baseball has an official rule prohibiting a person who gambles on a game in which they participate from ever being inducted into the HOF: “Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible.”

An investigation into Rose showed that he bet on baseball both as a player and as a manager late in his career while with the Cincinnati Reds. He denied gambling on baseball at the time but admitted to betting on baseball in his 2004 autobiography. Later, he would sign and sell baseballs with the inscription, “Sorry I bet on baseball.”

As a result, he was banned from the HOF in 1989, a punishment to which he voluntarily agreed. He died in 2024 at the age of eighty-three.

President Trump did not specify what a pardon would be for, but Rose was sentenced in 1990 to five months in prison for submitting falsified tax returns. He also faced allegations of sex with a minor, but he was never charged with a crime in that instance.

A presidential pardon would be entirely unrelated to MLB’s disciplinary process, which is what prevents Rose from entering the HOF. He would have to be removed from MLB’s permanently ineligible list, which would require Commissioner Rob Manfred to go back on previous statements that he believed permanent banishment to be the appropriate punishment for betting on baseball.

Manfred denied Rose’s request for forgiveness in 2015 and again in 2022. When he denied Rose’s petition for reinstatement in 2015, he said Rose’s conduct was among the reasons for his decision: “Mr. Rose has not presented credible evidence of a reconfigured life either by an honest acceptance by him of his wrongdoing, so clearly established by the Dowd Report, or by a rigorous, self-aware and sustained program of avoidance by him of all the circumstances that led to his permanent ineligibility in 1989.”

If the commissioner and the HOF board were to reinstate Rose’s eligibility, the Hall’s Classic Baseball Era committee could consider him at its next vote in December 2027, meaning his next chance at actual induction would likely come in July 2028.

Sin, forgiveness, and consequences

Pete Rose’s story presents us with an opportunity to think about sin, forgiveness, and consequences.

With regard to sin, the Bible is clear: “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). Gambling is perhaps the most notorious crime against baseball in the game’s history, going back to the infamous Chicago Black Sox scandal of 1919. Despite the risk, Mr. Rose apparently thought his gambling activities would remain private, but he was obviously wrong.

So it is with all “private” sin—the cancer inevitably metastasizes and costs far more than the reward it promises. It cannot be otherwise: Satan hates us, so he will never tempt us to commit a sin unless the sin will damage us beyond any “good” it offers.

With regard to forgiveness: We can confess any sin and be forgiven for it (1 John 1:9), but such confession must come with contrition. Scripture is clear: “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8).

This means we must have a sincere desire to change our behavior. Otherwise, our confession is insincere and deceptive, harming us rather than positioning us to experience divine grace. And God cannot reward what harms his children and defames his holiness.

With regard to consequences: God forgives all we confess, but the consequences of our actions often remain.

If I drive a nail into a piece of wood and you remove the nail, the hole remains. So it is with many of the sins we commit: their consequences cannot be “undone” and persist even when the sin itself is forgiven.

People harmed by our sins cannot be “unharmed” as if the sins were not committed. Children in homes broken by adultery and divorce are innocent victims but victims, nonetheless. So it is with all who are injured by sins they did not commit.

And the consequences of our sins can remain for us as well. As Dr. Ryan Denison wrote recently, “Because of the grace we receive through Christ, our sins don’t have to keep us out of heaven. However, they can keep us from having a close relationship with God before we get there and will impact our experience once we do.”

When we stand before the Lord, he will judge our works as “gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw” (1 Corinthians 3:12). If our works have pleased him, we will “receive a reward” in paradise (v. 14). If they do not, we will “suffer loss” and will “be saved, but only as through fire” (v. 15).

This does not mean that we can earn or lose our salvation (cf. Ephesians 2:8–9). It does mean that God will reward us in eternity for every act of faithfulness on earth. But he cannot reward sin and remain holy, so our acts of sin cost us eternal reward.

When we confess our sins, he cleanses us from them. However, the reward we would have received for the obedience we refuse is lost forever.

“May all who come behind us find us faithful”

Paul tells us that we can and should learn from the past: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction” (Romans 15:4). Frederick Buechner similarly encouraged us to “listen to your life” and seek to learn from all you experience.

Accordingly, I believe one way God redeems the difficulties of others is by using them to help us when we face similar challenges. In this context, the next time we are tempted by “private” sin, let’s consider Pete Rose. Let’s remember that the all-time hits leader in baseball history is not in baseball’s Hall of Fame and may never be.

And let’s resolve to live in such a way that our life and legacy can be part of a Hall of Faith for the glory of God. As the song says,

May all who come behind us find us faithful

May the fire of our devotion light their way

May the footprints that we leave lead them to believe

And the lives we live inspire them to obey

Oh, may all who come behind us find us faithful.

Who will “come behind” you today?