Longtime Reds announcer slams MLB for 'wrong' timing on Pete Rose Hall of Fame eligibility

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld and the ‘Gutfeld!’ panel consider the ‘Trump effect’ on Major League Baseball reinstating Pete Rose.

Longtime Cincinnati Reds announcer Marty Brennaman expressed his frustration with Major League Baseball’s (MLB's) timing of the removal of Pete Rose from the permanently ineligible list. 

Brennaman, 82, who announced Reds games from 1974-2019, said for MLB to make Rose eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame just months after his death was "the wrong way to go."

"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," Brennaman told TMZ. 

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Pete Rose's daughter, Fawn Rose, speaks as Reds Hall of Fame players, from left to right, George Foster, Barry Larkin and Eric Davis listen during Pete Rose Night events before a baseball game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday, May 14, 2025 in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

"I’m just trying to reconcile in my own mind why they waited as long as they did. 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."

Brennaman said that Rose had come to terms with the fact that he would not make the Baseball Hall of Fame while he was alive. 

"He had come to grips with the fact that it was not going to happen until after he passed away. He said as much