Revisiting Pete Rose's 2020 petition during the Astros' sign-staling scandal: "There cannot be one set of rules for Mr. Rose and another for everyone else"
Pete Rose is a polarizing character in the MLB sphere. His on-field heroics in 1970s and 1980s are often overshadowed by his betting scandal. Although Rose is the all-time leader in hits, at-bats, and games played, he is permanently banned from the league.
Rose was banned in 1989 after an investigation found that he gambled on his own games while playing and managing the Cincinnati Reds. He has begged for forgiveness and attempted to get reinstated into the league multiple times. However, MLB has not budged. He hopes to be inducted into the Hall of Fame while he's still alive.
Pete Rose attached himself to the Houston Astros' signs stealing scandal in 2017. He made a desperate plea to MLB officials, arguing that the penalties handed out to the Astros were too lenient.
“There cannot be one set of rules for Mr. Rose and another for everyone else. No objective standard or categorization of the rules violations committed by Mr. Rose can distinguish his violations from those that have incurred substantially less severe penalties from Major League Baseball.”-Pete Rose's petition to the MLB
The Athletic published an article in 2018 that outlined how the Astros used electronic equipment to guess what an opposing pitcher was going to throw. Astros staffers would determine the pitch by stealing the catcher’s signs and then alert the player at bat about the ball that was coming.
MLB handed out the harshest fines in their history for a club with plenty of personnel getting suspended and/or losing their jobs. Pete Rose took this opportunity and wrote a petition stating his concerns.
Pete Rose is utterly opportunistic: NBC Sports on his petition
Craig Calcaterra, writing for NBC Sports, absolutely blasted him for making the entire ordeal about himself. They called it an opportunist move by a fallen legend who was trying to come out of a pathetic place he had got himself into.
He further stated that this was an attempt by the legend to get microphones and cameras in front of him to generate publicity. This is not the first time that Rose has written a petition. In 2016, his lawyers wrote a petition to the MLB to consider him for the MLB Hall of Fame, where he was ineligible for induction in 1991. All of his petitions have gone unheard of by the authorities in the MLB.