A new season of baseball is providing hope for teams and players in and outside of prison. Last year, President Donald Trump pardoned Major League Baseball icons Darryl Strawberry and Pete Rose for their crimes.

Former New York Met Darryl Strawberry was pardoned in November 2025 for tax evasion and drug charges, while former Cincinnati Reds player and manager Pete Rose was pardoned posthumously in March 2025 for gambling.

When Trump pardoned Strawberry, the 1983 National League Rookie-of-the-Year, he referenced Strawberry’s post-career embrace of Christian faith and longtime sobriety.

Strawberry thanked the President in an Instagram post, writing, “Thank you, President for my full pardon and for finalizing this part of my life, allowing me to be truly free and clean from all of my past.”

Strawberry told the Associated Press that while, “Half asleep, I glanced over and saw a call from Washington D.C. Curious, I answered…the lady on the line said, ‘Darryl Strawberry, you have a call from the President of the United States, Donald Trump.’  President Trump spoke warmly about my baseball days in NYC, praising me as one the greatest player of the ’80s and celebrating the Mets. Then, he told me he was granting me a full pardon from my past.”

Trump approved a pardon for Strawberry, who had served time and paid back taxes.

Prior to Strawberry’s’ pardon, Rose served five months… President Trump said he would pardon baseball great Pete Rose and chastised Major League Baseball for barring the all-time hit leader from the sport’s Hall of Fame for gambling.

Rose, who died in 2024 at age 83, was banned from baseball for life after confessing to betting on games while he was a manager for the Cincinnati Reds. In his testimony, Rose declared he had never bet against his own team before he was barred for life.

In 2015, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred rejected Rose’s bid for reinstatement.

Rose served five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges in 1990.