Trump's influence possible factor in MLB's removal of Pete Rose from ineligible list, ESPN broadcaster says

Trump's influence a possible factor in MLB's removal of Pete Rose from permanently ineligible list, ESPN broadcaster Karl Ravech says during an appearance on OutKick's "The Ricky Cobb Show."

Pete Rose was removed from Major League Baseball’s permanently ineligible list on Tuesday.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wrote that upon a player’s death, they are no longer ineligible as they can no longer "represent a threat to the integrity of the game," in a letter obtained by ESPN. Seventeen players are now eligible to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. 

ESPN’s "Sunday Night Baseball" broadcaster Karl Ravech thought Rose’s reinstatement seems associated with Manfred’s recent meeting with President Donald Trump. 

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Reds Hall of Famer Pete Rose is introduced before the unveiling a bronze statue of him outside the Great American Ball Park in downtown Cincinnati on June 17, 2017. (IMAGN)

Trump and Manfred met at the White House last month, but it is unclear what the two discussed. Trump has been ardent in his belief that Pete Rose should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. 

"It seems more closely associated with a meeting he had with the president, Donald Trump, who made it quite clear he wanted to absolve Pete Rose and get him back into a position where he would then be eligible for a committee to get him into the Hall of Fame," Ravech said during an appearance on OutKick’s "The Ricky Cobb Show."

Trump posted to Truth Social in February that he would posthumously pardon Rose. MLB’s hit king served five months in prison in 1990 and in 2017 was accused of statutory rape from an encounter decades earlier.

Ravech said he himself is unsure of MLB’s motivation for removing