Pete Rose banned from baseball on this day in 1989
On this date 37 years ago, then-Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Pete Rose from Major League Baseball over gambling allegations, creating a national sports story that dragged on for decades and still carries local emotion and debate in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The banning of Rose, who had been the Cincinnati Reds manager, came on Aug. 24, 1989, after six months of denial, defense and delay. Rose, baseball’s all-time hit leader and holder of 19 major-league records, signed a five-page agreement with Giamatti in which he agreed to a lifetime penalty but did not formally admit to gambling on baseball at the time.
Rose, a Cincinnati native, played 19 seasons with the Reds and collected an MLB-record 4,256 hits in his career.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame later ruled that players on the “permanently ineligible” list would be banned from induction as well, keeping Rose’s name outside of baseball’s most prestigious club.
Rose denied the allegations for many years before acknowledging in 2004 that he gambled on baseball, in hopes the sport would allow him back in its good graces and eventual entry into the Hall of Fame, the Associated Press reported after Rose died in Las Vegas in September 2024.
He applied for reinstatement numerous times over the years. He argued the lifetime ban that he agreed to in 1989 was never intended to keep him out of Cooperstown. However, he failed to get himself removed from the ineligible list before he died at age 83. Then, in May 2025, Rose was posthumously removed from baseball’s ineligible list by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.
Manfred ruled that the league’s punishment of banned players must end after the player’s death.
A member of Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine, Rose is the all-time MLB leader in hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053) and singles (3,215). Noted for his all-around ability and enthusiasm, he was referred to as Charlie Hustle — taking home three World Series titles, one MVP award, two Gold Gloves and a Rookie of the Year award (1963), among dozens of other accolades.
Rose, who is still regularly celebrated in Ohio, will be eligible for the MLB Hall of Fame ballot in 2027.
In the video player at the top, Jerry Springer, who then worked for sister station WLWT, interviewed Rose about being banned.
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WLWT and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
