My posts are seldom about breaking news but today will be an exception. The MLB commissioner has decided that Pete Rose is no longer a threat to the game and so has taken him off the permanently banned list. Pete Rose, my favorite Cincinnati Reds with whom I have a complicated relationship (https://walterthinnes.blog/2024/10/03/throwback-thursday-in-memoriam-pete-rose-the-dreams-and-the-distractions/), who bet on baseball and then lied about it for many years, is now eligible to be voted into the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame.

Pete died last September and predicted that maybe he would be let into the hall once he had died. All season long Reds players are wearing Pete’s number 14 on their sleeves and today is Pete Rose Day at Great American Ballpark for the Reds game.

I certainly believe Pete should be in the Hall of Fame as he is the greatest baseball player I have ever seen and he was a major cog in the Big Red Machine that thrilled me in my youth. Knowing his missteps, I felt his exclusion from being back in the business was appropriate but he belonged in the Hall. Ironically, betting now funds baseball significantly and a betting company runs the Reds broadcasting company today. Pete, apparently, was just ahead of his time.