By RONALD BLUM

NEW YORK (AP) — Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson were reinstated by baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday, making both eligible for the sport’s Hall of Fame after their careers were tarnished by sports gambling scandals.

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Rose’s permanent ban was lifted eight months after his death and comes a day before the Cincinnati Reds will honor baseball’s career hits leader with Pete Rose Night.

Manfred announced Tuesday that he was changing the league’s policy on permanent ineligibility, saying bans would expire after death.

Under the Hall of Fame’s current rules, it appears the earliest Rose or Jackson could be inducted would be in 2028.

Rose agreed to a permanent ban on Aug. 23, 1989, following an investigation commissioned by Major League Baseball concluded Rose repeatedly bet on the Reds as a player and manager of the team from 1985-87, a violation of a long-standing MLB rule.

Rose first applied for reinstatement in September 1997, but Commissioner Bud Selig never ruled on the request. Manfred in 2015 rejected a petition for reinstatement, saying “Rose has not presented credible evidence of a reconfigured life.”

Rose died Sept. 30 at age 83, and a new petition was filed Jan. 8 by Jeffrey Lenkov, a lawyer who represented Rose. Lenkov and Rose’s daughter Fawn had met with Manfred on Dec. 17.

A 17-time All-Star during a playing career from 1963-86, Rose holds record for hits (4,256), games (3,562), at-bats (14,053), plate appearances (15,890) and singles (3,215). He was the 1963 NL Rookie of the Year, 1973 MVP and 1975 World Series MVP. A three-time NL batting champion, he broke the prior hits record of 4,191 set by Ty Cobb from 1905-28.

FILE – This is an undated file photo showing Shoeless Joe Jackson. In 1917, two years before their scandalous appearance in the 1919 World Series, the White Sox beat the Giants in the World Series and Jackson batted .301. (AP Photo/File)

Jackson was a .356 career hitter who was among the eight Chicago Black Sox banned for throwing the 1919 World Series. Jackson twice appeared on a BBWAA ballot before the Hall’s rules change, receiving 0.9% in 1936 and 1% of a nominating vote in 1940.

What else needs to happen for Rose or Jackson to reach the Hall of Fame?

Under a rule adopted by the Hall’s board of directors in 1991, anyone on the permanently ineligible list can’t be considered for election to the Hall.

Rose’s reinstatement occurred too late for him to be considered for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot. If not on the permanently banned list, Rose would have been eligible on the ballots each from 1992 through 2006. He was written in on 41 votes in 1992 and on 243 of 7,232 ballots (3.4%) over the 15 years, votes that were not counted.

Without the ban, both players appear to be eligible for the Hall’s Classic Baseball Era, which next meets to consider players in December 2027 and considers those whose greatest contributions to the sport were before 1980.

A 10-person historical overview committee selects the ballot candidates with the approval of the Hall’s board and the ballot is considered by 16 members at the winter meetings, with a 75% or higher vote needed. The committee members include Hall of Fame members, team executives and media/historians.

Among the players in the 2028 class eligible for the BBWAA ballot are Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina.

Did Trump help get Rose reinstated?

Rose’s supporters have included U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he intends to pardon Rose posthumously. Manfred discussed Rose with Trump when the pair met in April, but he hasn’t disclosed specifics of their conversation.

It’s not clear what a presidential pardon for Rose would entail. Rose entered guilty pleas on April 20, 1990, to two counts of filing false tax returns, admitting he failed to report $354,968 during a four-year period. Rose was sentenced on July 19, 1990, by U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel in Cincinnati to five months in prison. He also was fined $50,000 and ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service as a gym teacher’s assistant with inner-city youths in Cincinnati as part of a one-year probation period. The first three months of the probation were to be spent at the halfway house. Rose repaid the Internal Revenue Service $366,042.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Perhaps the only thing that can stop the Twins right now is the weather.

The Twins, who are currently on an eight-game winning streak, were postponed on Tuesday in Baltimore because of inclement weather, a decision made hours before the first game of the series was set to begin.

The two teams will now play a doubleheader on Wednesday, though because of additional rain in the forecast, the games will be played earlier in the day. Instead of the regularly scheduled night game, the Twins and Orioles will play a doubleheader that will begin at 11:05 a.m. CT. Game two will start approximately 30 minutes after the first game ends.

The Twins have not been strangers to weather issues this season, enduring rain delays on nearly every road trip they’ve been on and a rain-shortened game at Target Field, but this will be their first twin bill of the season.

Simeon Woods Richardson had been scheduled to start on Tuesday with Bailey Ober on Wednesday, but the Twins have not yet announced their pitching plans for the doubleheader.

The Twins (21-20), who had Monday off, and Orioles (15-24) faced off last week with the Twins winning all three games of the series at Target Field.

Anthony Edwards leaned over to Warriors guard Gary Payton II during Game 3 on Saturday in San Francisco and said, “Y’all tryna get to Game 6 and get Wardell back.”

Wardell is the official first name of Steph Curry, who has been absent from the series since he left the second quarter of Game 1 with a hamstring injury.

“That is the plan,” Payton said.

Of course it is. Golden State cannot hang with Minnesota with its superstar on the bench. But when Curry is on the floor, all bets are off. It’s no guarantee he’d be back on Sunday, but Curry’s most likely return date was always Game 6.

Minnesota is one win away from ending the Western Conference semifinal before that return could come to fruition. That’s a big reason for Minnesota to take care of business in Game 5 on Wednesday at Target Center, which could serve as Minnesota’s first series closeout victory in Minneapolis since 2004.

It would be easy for Minnesota to overlook Wednesday’s bout. Two of its last three wins over the Warriors have come with relative ease. The Timberwolves are 10½-point favorites in Game 5. The general assumption is the Wolves buried the Warriors in Game 4 on Monday in San Francisco.

And perhaps that’s true. Maybe Golden State will walk onto the Target Center floor Wednesday merely out of obligation and go through the motions for 48 minutes before confirming offseason travel plans.

More likely, though, is the Warriors will battle, just as they’ve done all series and even when undermanned. Sans Curry, Golden State’s brand of basketball has not been pretty, but you cannot accuse the Warriors of not playing hard. Minnesota has gotten itself into sticky situations throughout the series when it has not matched Golden State’s intensity.

The Wolves lamented the closing five minutes of Monday’s Game 4 victory, in which they were out scored by 14 points by Golden State’s end-of-the-bench unit. There can be no letup.

“We’ve just got to drown out everything and then lock into this simulation. Like we’re in this focus of Golden State-Minnesota. Nothing else matters,” Wolves guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker said. “Being present, being in the moment. Making sure that we’re not playing for Game 5 with three minutes left in Game 4. And tip your hat to the guys that came in and played hard and really made us play hard. We took our foot off a little bit.

“But stuff like that, small things like that, carry over. Because who knows if they had 30 more seconds? Who knows?”

It was a similar story in the first half Monday, during which Golden State outexecuted and outworked Minnesota for the game’s first 24 minutes, and led by two at the break because of it.

“Just gameplan mistakes that can’t happen if you want to beat a championship team and if you want to move into the Finals — or Western Conference Finals, at least. You can’t,” Anthony Edwards said. “You can’t let those things happen. You’ve got to be better.”

Golden State’s narrow path to success since losing Curry has been clear. The Warriors have to play in transition, get numerous defensive stops and win the possession battle via turnovers and rebounds. The good thing about that, Alexander-Walker noted, is those are all controllables.

“It’s just kind of accepting the challenge. You know they’re going to play hard. You know they’re going to be scrappy and physical,” Wolves guard Mike Conley said. “And so we can’t come into any game relaxed or calm or getting comfortable. It’s just about how our edge has to continue to show up early in the game and last throughout the four quarters, because they’re going to just keep throwing everything at you and keep competing.”

Minnesota has lauded Golden State’s “championship DNA” throughout the series. The Wolves don’t expect that to wane with the Warriors in a do-or-die scenario Wednesday. While doubt has likely entered the Warriors’ minds, it would only take a bit of reason to believe Wednesday for Golden State to begin to envision a series-extending victory that could welcome Curry back into the fold.

“It’s still just a one-game series for us. The most important one is always the next one,” Conley said. “We know this team we’re up against, and the coaching that they have and how prepared they’re going to be. They’re going to be giving us every look they can. They’re going to come out playing hard, and we have to look to match it and exceed it to win this one, because it’s going to be the toughest one.”

And a win Wednesday would earn Minnesota additional rest ahead of the start of the Western Conference Finals. Every time the Wolves have had time off to prepare and recoup over the past two seasons, it has served them well.

Alexander-Walker said Minnesota needs to understand “the moment” on Wednesday.

“Can’t live in the past. Can’t jump too far ahead. Have to be present and understand that these are situations that are pivotal,” Alexander-Walker said. “You have a chance to close out on your home court as opposed to having to go elsewhere and try to win and then do it again and come back on the road and travel. As much of an advantage as you can gain in these playoffs, you want to keep that and play with that and use that. … For us, it’s just about defending home court, being better than that and growing. It’s far from over.”

Well, not far — not if Minnesota brings the proper approach on Wednesday evening.

“We’ve got to take care of business, we’ve got to be locked in,” Conley said. “And then we’ll worry about the rest later.”

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By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — ESPN said Tuesday that its new all-encompassing streaming service will take on a familiar name — ESPN — and launch in September at an initial price of $29.99 per month.

The service will enable consumers to view all of ESPN’s various networks, including ones devoted to the SEC, Big 10 and ACC college leagues, as well as content from the current ESPN+ streaming service, which will be folded in to the new product.

The network also promised enhancements to its ESPN app for mobile devices, including using artificial intelligence to create a personalized “SportsCenter” for consumers that concentrates on news and highlights for their favorite teams, sports and athletes.

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September will represent a big moment for ESPN on par with the cable sports network’s launch in 1979, the introduction of ESPN2 in 1993 and launch of the ESPN.com website two years later, said Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN chairman. The exact date it will become available will be announced later.

It’s also a pivotal development in the accelerating industry shift from television to streaming. ESPN and its sister channels will remain available on cable and satellite systems.

After kicking around several ideas for what to call the service, which was known informally as “Flagship” during the developmental stages, Pitaro said executives decided to keep it simple. “There’s power in our name and there’s trust in our name,” he said.

All live events shown on ESPN networks, along with sports shown on broadcast sister ABC-TV, will be available through the streaming service.

So will its other programming, like “SportsCenter”, “Pardon the Interruption,” “First Take,” “The Pat McAfee Show,” “NFL Live” and original films. ESPN announced Tuesday that a former network personality, Rich Eisen, will bring his daily program to ESPN even as he continues to work at the NFL Network.

ESPN’s streaming service will be available for $299.99 per year. The Disney-owned network said it will also allow people to bundle ESPN along with Hulu and Disney+ for $35.99 a month — or $29.99 a month for the first year.

Although consumers will be able to buy the more limited slate of programming available now on ESPN+ for $11.99 a month, Pitaro said ESPN decided against offering other lower-cost alternatives containing some, but not all, of the company’s various services. It would be too confusing for consumers, he said.

Pitaro said ESPN remains open to other acquisitions or partnerships to build programming. That includes potentially taking on some struggling regional sports networks that show baseball, even though ESPN decided earlier this year to opt out of the final three years of its contract to show Major League Baseball at the end of this season.

“When the league is ready to have a conversation, we are ready to listen,” Pitaro said.

David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social