Pete Rose’s path to Cooperstown looks a lot different now than it did when baseball shut the door on him.
For the first time, the Cincinnati Reds icon is eligible to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred lifted Rose’s ban from baseball in 2025, setting up a December 2027 vote by the veteran’s committee, which will have the chance to elect “The Hit King” to the Hall.
Rose’s case has always lived in two worlds at once. On one side is the stain that came from his admission that he bet on baseball and from other off-field improprieties.
On the other is one of the most decorated careers the sport has ever seen. Rose was the Rookie of the Year in 1963, won NL MVP in 1973, took home three World Series championships, earned two Gold Gloves, claimed three batting titles, made 17 All-Star teams and finished with the most hits in baseball history.
Now there’s a new wrinkle, and it’s hard to ignore.
Recent reporting from Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic points to a baseball landscape that looks very different from the one that banned Rose. According to Baggarly, Atlanta Braves star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. has partnered with Kalshi, which is also reportedly in talks with MLB on a league-wide deal. Baggarly also noted that five major league teams recently announced partnerships with Kalshi, a prediction market built around trading on future events, while the New York Mets and New York Yankees already have partnerships with financial trading platforms.
Add in MLB’s existing deals with sportsbooks such as FanDuel and BetMGM, plus the Players Association’s agreement with Hard Rock Bet, and the league’s posture toward gambling starts to look a lot less rigid than it once did.
That doesn’t mean players are free to bet on baseball. They are still prohibited from wagering on baseball games through legalized sports betting. Manfred’s office and the MLBPA also sent a joint memo to players late in the 2025 season telling them not to risk money on any outcome tied to baseball games or events.
Even so, the optics are impossible to miss. The league that once treated Rose’s betting as a line that could not be crossed is now deeply tied to gambling-adjacent business across the sport. As the source reporting framed it, baseball no longer seems to have a problem with sports gambling in the broad sense.
The risks are not theoretical, either. Baggarly pointed to the indictments of former Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, who were accused of being involved in a plot to rig the outcome of prop bets during regular season games. Neither player is likely to pitch in the major leagues again.
That is where the Rose argument sharpens. For years, MLB said he could not be considered for the Hall because he bet on baseball. Now the league is fully embracing sports gambling in a push to increase revenue, which makes the old line feel a lot less clean than it once did.
Whether that helps Rose in the end will be decided by the Classic Baseball Era Committee, made up of 16 members. He needs at least 12 votes to get in.
Most Reds fans would say the answer is yes. They just won’t be the ones casting the ballots.
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