San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano Banned for life for violating Major League Baseball gambling rulesMarcano, who was on the disabled list at the time, had bet more than $150,000 on baseball games, including his own team and the Pirates. Four other players also received one-year suspensions for betting on baseball, but not on their own teams.
It’s been a turbulent season for MLB when it comes to illegal or inappropriate gambling.
The regular season began with controversy: Shohei Ohtani’s longtime interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was fired by the Dodgers on suspicion of illegal gambling. It is worth noting that Mizuhara has not been charged with betting on baseball.He agreed to plead guilty to other charges.MLB officials are only allowed to bet on non-diamond sports (i.e. not baseball or softball) if sports betting is legal in their jurisdiction (and this is an important point).
Gambling remains illegal in California, and Mizuhara allegedly placed bets with Matthew Bowyer, a suspected bookmaker at the center of a major investigation. Mizuhara isn’t the only member of the MLB organization with ties to Bowyer. MLB has since opened an investigation into David Fletcher, a minor league infielder and pitcher for the Atlanta Braves. Also, for making illegal bets with Bowyer..
No matter where the investigation into Marcano, Fletcher and others leads, it’s worth knowing that organized baseball and gambling have a long and often immoral history.
In light of all these allegations, CBS Sports felt it was an appropriate time to look back on some of its history by highlighting some of the most notable scandals and stories. (Please note that this article is intended to be a brief and incomplete overview and is not a substitute for a full education on these incidents.)
1865: New York City Mutuals Makes History
Though the Mutuals were an amateur team, they are worth including because they represent the first time in history that there is a documented instance of a baseball team engaging in game fixing or gambling.
The American Baseball Research Association conducted a detailed investigation into the Mutuals’ game-fixing allegations in 2013, finding that three members of the team “conspired with gamblers to tip the game in favor of Brooklyn’s Eckfords.” The players were briefly suspended by the National Baseball Players Association.
1871: Chadwick rebukes the league for gambling becoming too widespread among the pros
The National Association, founded in 1871, was the first professional baseball league, but it didn’t last long because of widespread allegations of game-fixing schemes.
Henry Chadwick, a Hall of Fame journalist who would later be called the “Father of Baseball,” was an outspoken critic of the National Association’s methods. According to Derek Zumsteg’s The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball, Chadwick once wrote, “While I cannot present any solid evidence to support a direct charge of collusion among the players to commit fraud, not one person in ten who attended the majority of the games last October can be convinced that the games were played fairly and honorably.”
The National Association dissolved in 1875, and teams withdrew to form the National League. Zumsteg wrote in The Cheaters’ Guide to Baseball that the National League was “better organized and more practical than the National Association, and aimed to set higher standards.” Notably, the National League continued to allow players known for cheating to participate, undermining its efforts in the process.
1877: Gray plays around and finds out
The National League soon faced allegations of game fixing after a league investigation uncovered evidence linking utility player Al Nichols to gamblers, and several Louisville Grays players admitted to soliciting money at exhibition games. As a result, they were all banned from the National League.
Let us move forward a few decades and look at a number of stories of varying importance related to gambling and match fixing.
1903: Criger turns down offer to be first World Series pitcher.
We all know that the first modern World Series was played between the Boston Americans, led by Cy Young, and the Pittsburgh Pirates. According to the Omaha Morning Bee, Americans catcher Lou Criger thwarted an attempt by gamblers to fix the series by alerting American League president Ban Johnson after receiving a letter from someone promising $12,000 for him to forfeit the game.
Criger’s 1934 obituary in The Sporting News noted that Johnson later rewarded Criger for his loyalty by using league funds to treat him when he contracted tuberculosis.
Acknowledging that the allegations continued for years afterwards, let’s go back again and go back to when they exploded into one of the most notorious instances of match fixing in sports history.
1919: The Black Sox Scandal
Yes, here we have the most significant game-fixing scandal in the history of professional baseball (and arguably professional sports). This happened when the Chicago White Sox lost the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. The White Sox were accused of abandoning the series to receive money from crime boss Arnold Rothstein. So this is why “Shoeless” Joe Jackson is still so well known over a century later.
The White Sox were later put on trial and a grand jury found them not guilty of all charges, but the scandal led Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who became the league’s first commissioner in 1920, to ban eight players for life.
Whether Landis’ punishment was fair and appropriate remains a matter of debate, but as SABR’s Bill Lamb once pointed out, “After the Black Sox received their punishment, game fixing virtually disappeared from the world of major league baseball.”
Still, the Black Sox suspension was not the last time that officials were punished for their involvement with gambling.
1947: Dodgers’ Durocher suspended
Leo Durocher was a three-time All-Star shortstop and future Hall of Fame manager who had a long and successful career, but in 1947 Commissioner Happy Chandler suspended him for the season for a “series of unpleasant incidents,” including his hosting and socializing with gamblers.
In Paul Dixon’s biography of Durocher, then-shortstop Pee Wee Reese is quoted as saying, “It seemed like there were always gamblers and bettors around.”
Dickson added that Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey found that several players had a penchant for gambling on horse races and high-stakes poker games, but there was no evidence that anyone gambled on baseball, including Durocher, who was allowed back in the dugout for the 1948 season.
1970: McClain suspended for gambling involvement
Nearly a quarter century later, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn indefinitely suspended Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain for “gambling conduct and associations during 1967.”
The New York Times article about McClain’s suspension cited a Sports Illustrated report that suggested McClain was sidelined with a leg injury during the pennant race after being stomped by a thug after he and his partner failed to pay “some $46,600 in debt.”
After winning 31 games in 1968, McClain was cleared to return to the mound in July 1970.
1980, 1983: Mays and Mantle suspended
If you needed further evidence that Kuhn took baseball’s connection to gambling seriously, consider that he placed retired Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle on the lifetime ineligible list after they took on casino ambassador jobs. According to a 2020 article by author Craig Calcaterra, Kuhn even told Mays that “casinos are not the place for a baseball hero and Hall of Famer to go.”
Mays and Mantle were barred from baseball work for the remainder of Kuhn’s tenure; Kuhn’s successor, Peter Ueberroth, reinstated them in 1985 but, notably, did not challenge or dispute Kuhn’s original ruling in any way.
1989: Rose is expelled
After Ueberroth resigned in 1989, his successor, Bert Giamatti, had a tumultuous five months in the position before his death. To this day, Giamatti is best known for ousting legendary Cincinnati Reds player-manager Pete Rose after an investigation into whether Rose had gambled on baseball during his tenure as manager.
Rose repeatedly denied the allegations until 2004, when he admitted to only betting on games he managed that year. A 2015 ESPN investigation suggested Rose also gambled on games he played in.
Rose’s ban remains to this day and he was never selected for Cooperstown, though he was allowed back as a commentator for FOX closer to the game. The Philadelphia Phillies had planned to induct Rose on their Wall of Fame in 2017, but the plan was scrapped after a woman accused Rose of having a sexual relationship with her when she was underage in the 1970s.
By the way, Rose will be the first to place a legal sports bet in Ohio in January 2023. Perhaps time is indeed a flat circle.
2024: A wave of doubts
That brief history has now stretched to the present, with Mizuhara accepting a plea deal, Marcano banned for life and Oakland Athletics relief pitcher Michael Kelly and minor league players Jay Groome, Jose Rodriguez and Andrew Sahlfrank serving one-year suspensions, while Fletcher waits to learn his fate.
At the very least, it’s clear that professional baseball’s attitude toward gambling has changed significantly as sports betting has become legal across the country. Whereas once having any kind of ties to casinos was enough to land a beloved retired player on the suspended list, now the league itself is partnered with the gambling industry. In fact, Commissioner Rob Manfred named MGM Resorts the “Official Gaming Partner of Major League Baseball” in 2018. And last March, MLB touted a multi-year deal with FanDuel, making it the “co-exclusive official sports betting partner of MLB.”
Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen, but at the very least, professional baseball and gambling will likely remain more than just acquaintances.
