MLB commissioner Rob Manfred met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday.
“President Trump is a longtime fan of baseball,” MLB said in a statement Thursday. “As he has done in the past, Commissioner Manfred was pleased to visit the White House again to discuss issues pertaining to baseball with the president.”
The Washington Post first reported the news of the meeting. It’s unclear what specifically Manfred and Trump discussed. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In late February, Trump said he would posthumously pardon MLB’s all-time hits leader Pete Rose, the former Cincinnati Reds star who was banned from baseball for gambling on his team. At the time, Trump did not specify what he would pardon Rose for, but Rose served five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges in 1990.
Trump also previously called for Rose — who died in September at age 83 — to be elected to the Hall of Fame and said MLB “didn’t have the courage or decency” to allow him in.
A pardon wouldn’t directly make Rose eligible for the Hall. However, a league source confirmed to The Athletic last month that Manfred was considering a petition filed by Rose’s family to have him posthumously reinstated from MLB’s ineligible list, which could lead to his eventual selection to the Hall.
Manfred’s meeting with Trump also comes after the MLB Careers home page removed references to “diversity” in the midst of Trump’s executive orders in recent months aimed at eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
On Tuesday, the league celebrated the 78th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking of MLB’s color barrier. During the celebration at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar criticized Trump’s anti-DEI policies, calling them a “ruse to discriminate.” Last month, an article on Robinson on the Department of Defense’s website was scrubbed — and later restored — following Trump’s orders related to DEI.
The Los Angeles Dodgers faced criticism after they were largely silent about the removal of the webpage on Robinson, who played his famed MLB career with the Brooklyn Dodgers. As the reigning World Series champions, the Dodgers visited Trump at the White House last week, with every member of the team’s traveling party attending.
— The Athletic’s Evan Drellich contributed to this report.
(Photo: Brad Penner / Imagn Images)