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Report: Pete Rose to Remain Barred from Baseball

Pete Rose won't be reinstated.

According to three sources who spoke to the New York Times, Pete Rose's lifetime ban from baseball will not be lifted. Rose received the ban in 1989 after Major League Baseball found that he had bet on baseball games—including games he was a part of, as manager of the Cincinnati Reds. In September, Rose met with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred about a possible reinstatement and, at the time, MLB said a decision would be made "by the end of the calendar year." There are only 18 days left on the 2015 calendar, so word has finally leaked: no dice, Pete.

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According to one of the people with knowledge of Mr. Manfred's thinking, the commissioner was not persuaded by Mr. Rose's answers at their September meeting and believed he still had not told the whole truth about the extent of his gambling as a player and manager.

Rose and Manfred met on September 24th in a somewhat secret meeting that sounds like an extended question and answer session. Manfred asked Rose several questions and Rose said he "was truthful to him." That's sort of been the problem for Rose, as he has slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y, come clean about his past gambling on baseball. He initially denied that he gambled at all. Then he came clean about bets he made as Reds manager, but said he never bet against his team or while he was a player. Then in June of this year, an investigative report by Outside The Lines revealed he likely bet on games as a player, too.

Whatever your thoughts on him personally, this means the man with the most hits in the history of baseball will likely never see himself inducted into the Hall of Fame. Then he'll die, and everyone will feel bad about it and he'll eventually get in.

[New York Times]