Fawn Rose, the eldest daughter of baseball legend Pete Rose, was so overcome with emotion on Tuesday after MLB commissioner Rob Manfred had taken her dad off the permanent ineligible list that she became teary-eyed.
Fawn was at the airport in Seattle, about to fly to Cincinnati, when she received word, The Athletic reported.
“The emotion just kind of came over me,” she told the outlet. “I didn’t think the commissioner’s decision was going to affect me as much as it did.”
The only thing missing was Rose himself being there.
The former Reds great died Sept. 30 at the age of 83.
“I wish our dad was here to share this with our family and with all the fans,” Fawn said.
Rose was banned by then-MLB commissioner Bart Giamatti in 1989 after it was confirmed during an investigation led by former U.S. Department of Justice attorney John Dowd that Rose bet on the Reds as manager of the team from 1985-87.
Subsequent commissioners Fay Vincent, Bud Selig and Manfred had all previously kept the ban in place — Manfred denied petitions for reinstatement in 2015 and 2020 — before the change on Tuesday.
In December, Fawn pleaded her father’s case in a meeting with Manfred and MLB chief communications officer Pat Courtney, according to The Athletic.
With Rose’s reinstatement, he is now eligible to be voted into the Hall of Fame, which would be judged by the Classic Baseball Era Committee, which is set to meet in December 2027.
“His achievements on the field, I don’t think there’s ever going to be another Pete Rose, someone who played with heart and grit and left everything on the field and played every day for the fans,” Fawn said when asked for her pitch to the committee. “When he made the comment that he’d run through [hell] in a gasoline suit [to play baseball], he meant that.
“He was really that blue-collar worker. That’s the one thing I would want the Hall of Fame to look at — the accomplishments of the player on the field. That’s really important. I know there’s the other side of it. I’m a parent. But I’m a kid.”
The Reds are celebrating the news and will be handing out replica No. 14 Rose jerseys to fans for their matchup with the White Sox on Wednesday at Great American Ball Park.