Pete Rose wants to manage again - MLB

This might be even less likely than Ned Yost becoming an astronaut.

As the keynote speaker Saturday at the Ohio Justice & Policy Center Gala (trust us, if you have a chance to go once in your life, do so), Pete Rose said he still hopes to manage a major league team.

The 70-year-old Rose, who accepted a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989, said he has given up on being inducted to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. But if any owner and general manager out there have a future All-Star center fielder that needs burying, he’s your man.

Given that he shouldn’t be counting on receiving a major league manager’s salary anytime soon, we just hope he’s careful about reporting his appearance fee for the speech. Tonight’s remarks came in front of the federal judge who sent him to prison for tax evasion related to his gambling on baseball.

Roger Clemens will be an analyst for ESPN when the defending World Series champion Houston Astros host the Chicago White Sox on opening day.

Clemens made four appearances on last year’s KayRod Cast with Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez. He will be stepping in on March 30 for David Cone, who will be doing the New York Yankees opener against the San Francisco Giants on YES Network.

“Roger has been sort of a friend of ours for the last year, so to speak, he’s in. He’s been engaged, knowledgeable and really present,” said ESPN Vice President of Production Phil Orlins. “You know, whatever past may be, he’s still tremendously engaged and he really brought that every time he was with us.”

Clemens was a seven-time Cy Young winner but his career after baseball has been tainted by allegations of performance-enhancing drug use. He is a Houston native and pitched for the Astros for three seasons.

Orlins said that with the rules changes and pitch clock, it is important to have a pitcher in the booth with Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez.

“We don’t feel like we have to have the dynamic of Eduardo with a pitcher, but we certainly think that works. Throw in the added factor of rule changes and it is better to have a batter-pitcher perspective,” Orlins said.

Orlins did not say if this would open the door for future opportunities for Clemens as an ESPN analyst.