Major League Baseball's hit king, Pete Rose, as well as "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, and others have been removed from the permanently ineligible list by commissioner Rob Manfred.
Both Rose and Jackson are now eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, after being labeled for decades as two of the disgraced figures of the game for illegal gambling.
Manfred's decision ends the ban that Rose accepted in 1989 from then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, following an investigation that determined the 17-time All-Star had bet on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds. Jackson and seven other White Sox players were banned in 1921 by baseball's first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, for fixing the 1919 World Series in the infamous "Black Sox" scandal.
Jackson ranks fourth in MLB history with a .356 batting average, while Rose still holds the career records for hits, games played, at-bats, singles, and outs.
Rose passed away in September at the age of 83, while Jackson passed in 1951. Both players will now be considered by the Historical Overview Committee for the Hall of Fame, when they next meet in December of 2027.
