Baseball legend Pete Rose is holding out for longtime supporter Donald Trump to hit a home run for the GOP presidential race, and on Sunday made his support public by signing a baseball for Trump.
Trump tweeted a picture of a baseball Rose signed, asking the front-runner to "Please make America great again,"
reports CNN.
And Trump responded during a rally Sunday in West Chester, Ohio, calling for allowing the Cincinnati Reds star to be allowed into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
But it may not be that simple. Rose has been banned from Major League Baseball since 1989, after evidence grew that he had cast bets on games including on the Cincinnati Reds while he played for them and then managed them. In December, the league reinforced its ban, which keeps Rose out of Cooperstown.
Rose's endorsement, though, would likely meet with cheers in Ohio, where Trump is running a close race with Gov. John Kasich in the state's primary election on Tuesday.
Rose remains a popular hometown hero in Ohio, despite the revelations of his gambling, and in January, the Reds announced the organization will retire Rose's number 14 this summer during a weekend celebration of the All-Star's career. Further, the team has named Rose as its sole inductee into its own Hall of Fame for 2016, changing its rules that forbid anyone banned by the league to be named, and will erect a statue to honor the team's star player,
reports MLB.com.
Kasich, appearing on Fox News' "America's Newsroom," chuckled when told that Rose had endorsed Trump.
"My wife will be disappointed," he said. "She always wanted Rose to go in the Hall of Fame. She'll have to take a second look at that."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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