Al Behrman / AP file

"I'm a big hit when I'm up there," Pete Rose said of going to Cooperstown, the Journal reported. "It costs me a lot of money when I don't go up there."

Pete Rose, who has been banned from baseball for gambling since 1989, plans to return to Cooperstown, N.Y., to sign autographs during the weekend of baseball's Hall of Fame inductions July 30-31, the Las Vegas Sun reported Wednesday.

Rose had stayed away from Cooperstown the past three years, honoring a request from Major League Baseball. But with his campaign for reinstatement to baseball apparently stalled -- commissioner Bud Selig has said he has no plans to rule on Rose's request soon -- Rose has decided to return, the newspaper reported.

"I'm a big hit when I'm up there," Rose said, the Sun reported. "It costs me a lot of money when I don't go up there. If they're not going to help me or do anything for me, what am I supposed to do?"

Rose has been heading to Cooperstown since 1993, and has made $40,000 at past autograph shows, the newspaper reported.

Rose was banned from baseball in 1989 for gambling on games while managing the Reds. After years of denial, baseball's all-time king admitted in his recent book that he did gamble.

That move was largely seen as an attempt by Rose to get back in the good graces of Selig to earn reinstatement to baseball and an eventual place in the Hall of Fame. As a banned player, Rose is ineligible to be elected to the Hall.

Rose said that his representatives were in touch with MLB officials last week, the Sun reported. Major League Baseball spokesman Pat Courtney confirmed that Rose's agent, Warren Greene, has traded e-mails with MLB president Bob DuPuy, but that "there's been nothing new in that process," the newspaper reported.

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"I'm a pretty good baseball ambassador, talking good about the game, never saying anything negative about the commissioner because I don't believe anything negative about the commissioner," Rose said, the newspaper reported. "I'm not here to get on a soapbox about steroids or anything like that."

Still, Rose said he thinks he deserves a second chance, just as players who test positive for steroids aren't immediately thrown out.

"I'm not comparing the two," Rose said, the newspaper reported. "I gambled and I was wrong, I was absolutely wrong.

"(But) you have to have good people in your Hall, and I'm a good person. I just made a mistake. I paid for my mistake with my respect, I probably lost $50 million and I never had any due process. I've never been given an opportunity to have a second chance."

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