MLB removes Pete Rose, other banned players from permanently ineligible list

The road to get Pete Rose into Cooperstown took a tremendous step forward on Tuesday.

Rose, MLB's all-time hit king who was ousted for gambling, has been removed from Major League Baseball's permanently ineligible list after MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced that players' ineligibility from the game ends upon their deaths.

"Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game," Manfred wrote in a letter, obtained by ESPN, to attorney Jeffrey M.