In a petition sent to the MLB commissioner’s office and obtained by ESPN, Rose and his lawyers argue that Manfred has recently opted not to punish players guilty of major game-changing rules infractions and, as a result, should end Rose’s 30-½ year ban for gambling on baseball while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds. The lawyers say that Rose’s lifetime ban is “vastly disproportionate” when compared to MLB’s punishments of players who took steroids and the players involved in the sign-stealing schemes by the 2017 Houston Astros.

“There cannot be one set of rules for Mr. Rose and another for everyone else,” Rose’s 20-page petition for reinstatement says. “No objective standard or categorization of the rules violations committed by Mr. Rose can distinguish his violations from those that have incurred substantially less severe penalties from Major League Baseball.”