More than eight years after he was banned from baseball for life, Pete Rose applied for reinstatement Friday, trying to eliminate the barrier keeping him out of the Hall of Fame.
"Right now, the ball is in their court," Rose said on his nationally syndicated radio show. "I just hope they approach it with an open mind."Baseball's career hits leader said he signed a letter that was faxed to acting commissioner Bud Selig, who has shown no inclination to let Rose back in the game.
"He has requested that baseball reinstate him so he can spend the rest of his life in the game he loves," said Rose's lawyer, S. Gary Spicer.
None of the 14 people banned for life by baseball for gambling has been reinstated. Other baseball officials, speaking on the condition they not be identified, have said that Rose, 56, never will be allowed back until he admits he bet on baseball.
"The matter will be handled in due course," Selig said in a brief statement, a signal no decision is likely until next year at the earliest.
"OK, that's what we'll wait for," Rose said on his show, broadcast on the Sportsfan Radio Network.
Asked about the timing of his appeal, Rose responded, "Is the time right? We don't know if the time is right."
"You see how people receive me - overwhelming support," he said, referring to his many recent public appearances.
"I just hope the lords-that-be in baseball see how much the people like me," he said on the show, broadcast from his restaurant in Boca Raton, Fla.
Rose, a 17-time All-Star and the National League's MVP in 1973, was manager of the Reds when he agreed to the lifetime ban Aug. 23, 1989, a penalty then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti made public the following day.