Pete Rose's Daughter Praises Commissioner Rob Manfred To OutKick After Big Reinstatement Announcement

CINCINNATI, OH — On a rainy afternoon eight miles west of Great American Ballpark where politicians were renaming Pete Rose's childhood field in his honor, Fawn Rose, Pete's oldest daughter, was still processing the news from Tuesday that Major League Baseball had reinstated her father. 

"I can’t speak more highly of the commissioner," Fawn told OutKick. "He was incredible to meet with in December. I walked out of that meeting hopeful."

Now, with a sellout crowd descending on Cincinnati for Pete Rose night, those hopes are reality for a family that lost Pete on September 30. 

"Pete Rose the baseball player. Pete Rose the hometown hero. Pete Rose  the father. Pete Rose the grandfather. I think he weighed all that in. I was pretty emotional. I wasn't expecting it," Fawn told a gathered crowd at the field dedication event. 

"I wish we could've announced it tonight with 45,000 people in the stands, but [Manfred] had to beat us to the punch."

Pete Rose's oldest daughter, Fawn Rose, speaking to OutKick Wednesday at a field dedication in his honor.  Joe Kinsey / OutKick

President Trump's role in the reinstatement of Pete Rose by Major League Baseball

"I'm not political, so I don't want to make this political at all. I just want to focus on the fact that the commissioner did what he did [Tuesday] and we're happy with the outcome and ready for the next steps," Fawn Rose added while talking to OutKick. 

Though the Rose family prefers to lay low and celebrate this moment for their father and grandfather, Sunday Night Baseball's Karl Ravech was more than open to talking about the Trump factor during Wednesday's Ricky Cobb Show. 

"It seems closely associated with a meeting he (Manfred) had with President Donald Trump who made it quite clear that he wanted to absolve Pete Rose and get him back into a position where he would then be eligible for the committee to get him into the Hall of Fame," Ravech explained to Cobb.

"I look at the Hall of Fame, and this is such an individual and personal conversation about your feelings about Rose and your feelings about the sport, but for me Pete Rose is in the Hall of Fame," Ravech continued. 

"If you go to Cooperstown you will see the numbers, the bats, you'll hear about the records, and you'll know that nobody in the history of the game has more hits than Pete Rose. If you're talking about putting a plaque up in the hall where all the other plaques are, that's a different story, and that's clearly what this paves the way for."

Reds fans have already begun celebrating Pete Rose 

As Cincinnati prepares for a party on Wednesday night for Pete Rose Night, it doesn't matter at this point who made this deal get to the finish line. Fans are just ready to feel good about the Pete saga. 

Fans lined up at the gates in front of Great American Ballpark starting at 2 p.m. (that's when I got to the park) for a 7:14 ET first pitch. 

There will be a party tonight and, eventually, according to Reds President and CEO Phil Castellini, there will be one in New York where Pete Rose was banished to signing autographs in the back of a baseball card shop all those years.  

"In Cooperstown, that’s where we'll have the real party. The party we've been waiting to throw for decades. God bless America, God bless the Cincinnati Reds and God bless Pete Rose," Castellini said at the field dedication.