Pete Rose denied reinstatement by MLB commish Rob Manfred

(AP) Pete Rose will not be allowed back into baseball, according to a ruling handed down Monday morning by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.

So ends a year of will-he-or-won’t-he involving the new commish and baseball’s embattled Hit King, who was banned from the game in 1989 after admitting he bet on baseball. The question of whether Rose should be back in has divided the sport for years, and Manfred — though he has shown he’s open to radical ideas — won’t be the man to let Rose back in.

The decision isn’t all too surprising, especially after Shoeless Joe Jackson was denied reinstatement earlier this year as well. MLB made the Rose news official in a press release that read:

“Major League Baseball announced today that it has completed the review regarding Pete Rose’s application for reinstatement from the Ineligible List. Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. today informed Mr. Rose, both verbally and in writing, that the application has been denied.”

Some fans hoped 2015 could be the year for Rose, with Manfred taking over as commish and giving Rose another chance to appeal for reinstatement. The MLB All-Star game was also in Cincinnati this season, which gave Rose a chance to return to the field and be applauded by Reds fans. He worked for a time as an analyst for Fox Sports as well, offering commentary into the postseason.

[From June: Jeff Passan writes that Pete Rose could never get out of his own way]

However, as Monday’s news shows, there weren’t enough wins for Rose to get back in baseball’s good graces permanently. He was also dinged earlier in the year when new evidence leaked in June saying Rose gambled as a player, something he had previously denied on the record.

So the debate around Rose will continue, same as it ever was: The player with the most hits in baseball history, sitting on the outside looking in while everybody debates his crime and wonders if the punishment is enough already. For this commissioner, in his moment, it was not.

This post will be updated.

More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports: