(COOPERSTOWN, NY) -- Pete Rose, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and 15 other deceased baseball players have been removed from MLB's permanent list of banned players, according to a memo from the league's commissioner.
The decision allows Rose, who accepted a ban for life from MLB in 1989 for gambling on games, to be eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame posthumously.
The decision only applies to dead players who have been placed on the ineligible list.
"The National Baseball Hall of Fame has always maintained that anyone removed from Baseball’s permanently ineligible list will become eligible for Hall of Fame consideration," Hall of Fame Chairman Jane Forbes Clark said in a statement. "Major League Baseball’s decision to remove deceased individuals from the permanently ineligible list will allow for the Hall of Fame candidacy of such individuals to now be considered."
However, a vote by the Historical Overview Committee, often known as the veterans committee, which considers players who made their greatest impact prior to 1980, will not vote on candidates to be included in the hall again until December 2027.
Rose died last October at 83 years old. Rose petitioned the league to be removed from the list in 1992, 1998, 2003, 2015 and 2022 -- but either was rejected or received no response each time, including from Manfred.
Rose and Jackson are likely the only two players on the list of players whose body of work would make them likely to be voted to the Hall of Fame.
Rose's workmanlike attitude and hustle on the field won him innumerable fans. By the end of his 24-year career, 19 of which were with the Cincinnati Reds, he held the record for most career hits, as well as games played, plate appearances and at-bats. He was also a 17-time All-Star, the 1973 NL MVP and 1963 Rookie of the Year.
He also won three World Series -- two with Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine" clubs in 1975 and 1976, and a third with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980.
But Rose will always be remembered for being banned for life over gambling on games while he was managing the Reds.
With Rose under suspicion, new MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti commissioned an investigation led by John Dowd, a lawyer with the Department of Justice, in April 1989. By June, the damning report was released, documenting at least 52 bets on Reds games in 1987, his first season as solely a manager after serving as player/manager for three seasons. The bets totaled thousands of dollars per day, according to the Dowd Report.
"While it is my preference not to disturb decisions made by prior Commissioners, Mr. Rose was not placed on the permanently ineligible list by Commissioner action but rather as the result of a 1989 settlement of potential litigation with the Commissioner's Office," MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday. "My decision today is consistent with Commissioner Giamatti’s expectations of that agreement."
Jackson, meanwhile, was banned from baseball for life in 1920 by then-Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in connection to the so-called "Black Sox Scandal."
Jackson and seven other members of the Chicago White Sox were given money by an organized gambling ring to fix the 1919 World Series for the Reds. The players made a paltry sum of money compared to today's mega-millionaire contracts and were angry about the team owner, Charles Comiskey, paying them a pittance. There was no baseball players union at the time.
All eight of the players -- featured in the 1988 movie "Eight Men Out" -- have been reinstated: Jackson, Eddie Cicotte, Happy Felsch, Chick Gandil, Fred McMullin, Swede Risberg, Buck Weaver and Lefty Williams. Gandil was known as the ringleader of the group and allegedly set up the payment, while it's always been disputed how much Jackson even knew about the plan. He did, however, allegedly admit to accepting $5,000 as part of the scheme, according to testimony from a criminal trial over the case, something he later recanted.
If he did accept money, he didn't show any signs of throwing games on the field. Jackson hit 12-for-35 (.375) with three doubles, five runs scored and six runs batted in over the eight games in the series. The World Series was a best-of-9 format at the time.
Jackson was one of the best hitters of the early 20th century. Over 13 seasons with Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago, the outfielder had a lifetime batting average of .356 with a .423 on-base percentage. He finished in the top 10 in MVP voting four times and led the majors in hits twice, triples twice and total bases twice.
The other former players banned from the league and now reinstated -- who are not as widely known -- were Joe Gedeon, Gene Paulette, Benny Kauff, Lee Magee, Phil Douglas, Cozy Dolan, Jimmy O’Connell and William Cox.
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