President Trump tweeted his support Saturday for former pro baseball player and Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose to be inducted into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame. “Pete Rose played Major League Baseball for 24 seasons, from 1963-1986, and had more hits, 4,256, than any other player (by a wide margin),” the president tweeted. “He gambled, but only on his own team winning, and paid a decades long price. GET PETE ROSE INTO THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME. It’s Time!” Trump’s sign of support comes after Rose and his lawyers submitted a 19-page letter this week to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred arguing that the league’s reluctance to punish Houston Astros players in an electronic cheating scandal demonstrates double standards in light of Rose’s reinstatement. He was permanently declared ineligible from baseball in 1989 over accusations that he gambled on games while he was a Reds player and manager. Rose admitted to gambling on the Reds while managing the team in the 1980s. His lawyers wrote that his ban is “vastly disproportionate” to the punishment of Astros players involved in sign-stealing schemes in 2017 and players who took performance-enhancing drugs.
