{"id":13363,"date":"2015-12-16T09:04:57","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T17:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/pete-rose-contrite-holds-out-hope-for-hall-of-fame\/"},"modified":"2015-12-16T09:04:57","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T17:04:57","slug":"pete-rose-contrite-holds-out-hope-for-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/pete-rose-contrite-holds-out-hope-for-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Rose contrite, holds out hope for Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS \u2014<\/strong> Pete Rose insisted Tuesday he is a changed person even if he still likes to bet on an occasional baseball game.<\/p>\n

Baseball\u2019s career hits leader said he was disappointed at not being allowed back in the game but held out hope he could still one day be inducted into the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be nice to have the opportunity to go to the Hall of Fame,\u201d Rose said. \u201cMy whole life has been a Hall of Fame life just by the association with the teammates I had.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a news conference fronting his restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip, Rose said he couldn\u2019t rewrite history but still believes even at age 74 that he can one day be back in baseball. He said he was sorry for his mistakes of the past, which included betting on games while with the Cincinnati Reds.<\/p>\n

Rose said he believes Rob Manfred will be a great commissioner, but that Manfred was put in a tough spot in having to rule on Rose\u2019s reinstatement 26 years into a lifetime ban. He also said his meeting with Manfred earlier this year \u2014 where he first denied still betting on baseball and then admitted he did \u2014 could have gone better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a good guy, to be honest with you,\u201d Rose said. \u201cI tried to be as honest as I could with the commissioner, but I made some mistakes and I clarified them. Some of his questions, though, I kind of panicked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose was contrite and somewhat upbeat in offering his first comments since Manfred on Monday rejected his application for reinstatement. But he refused to be drawn into the debate of whether players linked to steroids should be allowed in the Hall of Fame when anyone on the permanently excluded list \u2014 Rose is currently the only living person on it \u2014 cannot be on a Hall of Fame ballot.<\/p>\n

He also would not comment on Manfred\u2019s decision to keep him out of baseball partly because he still does gamble on baseball while at the same time Major League Baseball has a stake in the daily fantasy site DraftKings.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can make that evaluation. I\u2019m not a DraftKings guy. I\u2019m not an online guy,\u201d said Rose, who had 4,256 hits in a career that stretched from 1963-86. \u201cI just try to have fun and live my life and have some enjoyable moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose spoke on an outdoor patio fronting the Strip, where a crowd of a few hundred onlookers gathered behind the television cameras to watch the spectacle. At one point the crowd started chanting \u201cLet him in, Let him in,\u201d getting a wide smile from Rose in reaction.<\/p>\n

While Manfred had the final say in whether Rose could be reinstated, he made a point of noting Monday that his decision was separate from that of the Hall of Fame, which in 1991 adopted a rule keeping anyone on the permanently ineligible list off the ballot.<\/p>\n

Rose was joined by one of his sons and flanked by two attorneys, one of whom argued that Rose should be allowed on the Hall ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has been punished and he has been punished severely from being banned from the sport he loves,\u201d attorney Mark Rosenbaum said, noting that other players with character flaws have gotten in the Hall of Fame. \u201cIt is the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Saints.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose agreed to the ban in August 1989 after an investigation for Major League Baseball by lawyer John Dowd found Rose placed numerous bets on the Reds to win from 1985-87 while playing for and managing the team.<\/p>\n

The ban prevents Rose from working for any major league team or minor league affiliate, but he is allowed to make ceremonial appearances with the commissioner\u2019s permission and may work for third parties such as Fox, which hired Rose this year as a baseball analyst.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in control of my life now,\u201d Rose said. \u201cI watch baseball, talk on Fox and talk baseball to anyone who wants to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose acknowledged he hasn\u2019t always been in control of his life, including a period in the late 1980s when he said he gambled way too much. He still likes to place bets, he said, but they are not for big money and are perfectly legal in his adopted hometown of Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s at peace with Manfred\u2019s decision, he said, but still yearns for a relationship with the game he has loved all his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I look forward to being some day is a friend of baseball,\u201d Rose said. \u201cI want baseball and Pete Rose to be friends. I want to say I\u2019m not an outsider looking in. I have grandkids, and they want their grandpa to be associated with baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is, said Rose, not a complicated person.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a baseball player. I\u2019m a baseball person,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s never going to change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS \u2014 Pete Rose insisted Tuesday he is a changed person even if he still likes to bet on an occasional baseball game. Baseball\u2019s career hits leader said he was disappointed at not being allowed back in the game but held out hope he could still one day be inducted into the Hall of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13363"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}