Longtime Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman questioned Major League Baseball’s timing in reinstating Pete Rose, doing so only months after Rose had died.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced earlier this week that Rose, along with 16 other players on the permanently ineligible list, would be taken off it.
While Brennaman, who called Reds games from 1974 until he retired in 2019, is happy to see Rose become eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame, he wishes it had occurred while the Reds great was still alive.
“I’m just trying to reconcile in my own mind why they waited as long as they did,” Brennaman said during an interview with TMZ. “And then, within a matter of months after Pete’s passing in September, now they come out and they announce in grand fashion that they have lifted the suspension and made he and ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson — there may be others I’m not even aware of — eligible to be considered for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“I just felt that he had served his jail time, if you will, far longer than he really should’ve had to do it. And the fact that they rushed to make him eligible within a matter of months, to me, was the wrong way to go about doing business.”
The news has delighted Reds fans and Rose’s family members since it was announced on Tuesday.
The decision came after a long lobbying effort by Rose’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lenkov, and a sit-down between Manfred, Lenkov, Rose’s daughter Fawn, and MLB chief communications officer Pat Courtney in December.
Rose seemed to be aware that he likely wouldn’t get his banishment from baseball reversed until after he died, Brennaman said.
“He had come to grips with the fact that it was not going to happen until after he passed away,” Brennaman added. “He said as much to a number of different people. He obviously wanted it to happen while he could enjoy it. At the same time, he made the comment that being in the Hall of Fame is more for the family than anybody else.
“So obviously he was thinking about his kids and enhancing the legacy that has, at times, been very, very tarnished, we all know that.”
Rose’s son, Pete Jr., echoed a similar sentiment while at a special ballfield dedication in the Sedamsville neighborhood of Cincinnati held in honor of his dad on Wednesday.
“That’s the thing. They made a decision, which was great. But it’s not going to bring dad back,” Pete Jr. told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
“It’s the human-element part, to where I’m still processing not having a dad. It’s not even been a year yet,” he continued. “I understand what kind of magnitude, what kind of player he was, but we’re talking about Dad.
“And that’s the hardest thing.”
