Tony Kornheiser doesn’t expect Pete Rose to make Baseball Hall of Fame

Major League Baseball may have lifted its lifetime ban on Pete Rose on Tuesday, but “Pardon The Interuption” host Tony Kornheiser doesn’t believe that means he’s getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame anytime soon. 

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced the stunning decision in a letter to attorney Jeffrey M. Lenkov, who petitioned for Rose’s removal from the list Jan. 8, and pointed out that Hall of Fame voting was not something he had a hand in. 

And Kornheiser, a longtime sportswriter and columnist, expected the baseball writers not to allow Rose, who died in September at the age of 83, into Cooperstown — nor “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who also had his ban lifted Tuesday. 

“Rob Manfred does not put you in the Hall of Fame. The baseball writers, who are members, put you in the Hall of Fame,” Kornheiser said during Tuesday’s show on ESPN. “Those baseball writers, as we know well, are guardians of the game. They take violations very seriously. Joe Jackson fixed games. Pete Rose bet on games as a manager of one team. That doesn’t go away. 

“You know who else is eligible for the Hall of Fame right now? Barry Bonds is eligible, Mark McGwire is eligible, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, they’re eligible. Are they getting in anytime soon? Doesn’t look that way from the voting.”

Rose agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 after an MLB investigation found he had bet on baseball as the manager of the Reds. 

Jackson was entangled in the infamous 1919 Black Sox Scandal, in which he and his Chicago White Sox teammates fixed the World Series.

The earliest that Rose or Jackson, who passed in 1951, could be enshrined in Cooperstown would be 2028, if they are elected by the baseball writers. 

“I would put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame,” Kornheiser continued. “I would put his sins on the plaque and his accomplishments on the plaque. I agree that when your life is gone, it’s OK to be eligible for something. But I do not see Pete Rose as a first-ballot Hall of Famer. I just don’t. I don’t think it’s going to happen because of the writers.”