The Associated Press

 

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully says he wouldn’t vote Pete Rose into baseball’s Hall of Fame.

The 88-year-old Scully discusses Rose in an interview for the upcoming March issue of AARP Bulletin, released Friday to The Associated Press.

Scully was asked by freelance writer Jon Saraceno whether he would vote to induct Rose if Scully had a say, which he does not.

“I wouldn’t,” Scully said. “Should he be in? He should be. But by his own hand, he locked the door and kept himself outside.”

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred in December rejected Rose’s bid for reinstatement partly because the former Cincinnati Reds star still bets legally in Las Vegas, where he lives. Rose agreed to a lifetime ban in 1989 after an investigation for Major League Baseball by lawyer John Dowd found the career hits leader placed numerous bets on the Reds to win from 1985-87 while playing for and managing the team.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991 adopted a rule that keeps anyone on the permanently ineligible list off the Hall ballot.

Scully rarely makes personal comments about current or former players outside of the broadcast booth, where the Hall of Famer will be entering his record 67th and what he says is his final season working Dodgers games.

Asked to name the greatest non-Dodgers baseball player he has ever seen, Scully chose center fielder Willie Mays, who played for the New York and San Francisco Giants.

“He was a great player in center field who also could have been a great player at almost every other position,” Scully said.

The AARP Bulletin is available to subscribers March 1.