Orioles Legend Doesn’t Believe Pete Rose Will Get into Hall of Fame

The reinstatement of Pete Rose to Major League Baseball sent shockwaves throughout baseball on Tuesday.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred ruled on Tuesday that any player on the permanently ineligible list would be removed from the list after their death. That included Rose, along with close to 20 other players.

Rose was banned from baseball in 1989 after it was proven he bet on baseball games. His attempts at reinstatement during his life were not successful. Rose died last year.

This ruling allows Rose to be considered for the Baseball Hall of Fame, as players on the permanently ineligible list could not be considered.

But it also led to an inevitable question — should Rose be inducted into the Hall of Fame?

What Orioles Legend Jim Palmer Said About Pete Rose

The Athletic (subscription required) spoke to a dozen Hall of Famers about whether Rose should be inducted or not. Many of them were contemporaries of Rose.

Baltimore Orioles pitching legend Jim Palmer was among those who weighed in.

Palmer, now 79 years old, calls Orioles games for MASN and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1990.

He spent his entire career with Baltimore, where he went 268-152 with a 2.86 ERA in 558 games (521 starts), with 2,212 strikeouts and 1,311 walks in 3,948 innings.

Palmer, a right-hander, won three American League Cy Youngs, won four AL Gold Gloves, two AL ERA titles and was a six-time AL All-Star Game selection. He also helped Baltimore win three World Series crowns.

Palmer and Rose faced each other in the 1983 World Series, when Palmer’s Orioles beat Rose’s Philadelphia Phillies.

He told The Athletic that he doesn’t believe that Rose will get in, even as he acknowledged that he was one of the greatest players ever.

But Palmer said he’d always had a problem with Rose. He said everyone knew the rules around gambling and Rose broke those rules.

Once, Palmer said he and Rose talked about it.

“I told him, ‘If you profess to love the game as much as you professed it over the years, and the commissioner, which was Bart Giamatti, gives you a chance to be reinstated and to apologize and admit you made a mistake, if you really love the game as much as you profess to, you grovel, hands and knees, whatever.’” Palmer said. “And I said, ‘Well, why didn’t you do that?’ And he really didn’t have an answer.”

Late in his life, Rose did admit that he gambled on baseball and other sports while he played, including in his biography.

Rose finished his professional career with 4,256 hits, the most of any MLB player. He played 24 years, was a National League MVP, won NL rookie of the year, made the NL All-Star team 17 times, won three World Series rings, two Gold Gloves, a Silver Slugger, three NL batting title, the Roberto Clemente award and a World Series MVP.