NEW YORK (AP) — San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano was banned from baseball for life for betting on the sport and four others were suspended for a year by Major League Baseball Tuesday in the biggest gaming scandal in decades.
MLB said Marcano placed 387 baseball bets totaling more than $150,000 in October 2022 and from last July to November with a legal sportsbook. The 24-year-old Venezuelan, with 149 games of major league experience, became the first active player in a century banned for life due to gambling.
Oakland Athletics pitcher Michael Kelly was suspended for a year for betting on baseball while in the minor leagues, and three minor leaguers were also banned for a year for betting on baseball games. major league: pitchers Jay Groome of San Diego and Andrew Saalfrank of Arizona, and infielder José Rodríguez of Philadelphia. Each of these four players bet less than $1,000. Saalfrank and Rodríguez have already played in the majors.
“Strict enforcement of Major League Baseball’s rules and policies governing the conduct of gambling is an essential part of upholding our most important priority: protecting the integrity of our games for fans,” the statement said. baseball commissioner Rob Manfred in a statement. “The long-standing ban on betting on Major League Baseball games by players in the sport has been a fundamental principle for more than a century. We have made it clear that with the privilege of playing baseball comes the responsibility to refrain from certain types of behavior that are legal for other people.
Marcano became the second North American athlete banned for gambling in recent months. The NBA banned Toronto’s Jontay Porter for life in April after concluding, he leaked confidential information to bettors and bet on games, including the Raptors to lose.
Marcano is the first active major league player banned for life under gambling provisions since New York Giants outfielder Jimmy O’Connell in 1924. Pete Rose, baseball’s career leader, agreed to a ban for life in 1989 after an investigation concluded he had bet on Cincinnati. Reds games while managing the team.
Marcano spent parts of the last three major league seasons with Pittsburgh and San Diego, who signed him as a teenager in 2016. He made his major league debut with the Padres in 2021 before traded to the Pirates later that year.
Marcano has not played since tearing his right anterior cruciate ligament on July 24. The Padres claimed him off waivers from Pittsburgh last November, but he did not suit up for San Diego while recovering from his knee injury.
New San Diego manager Mike Shildt and most of the current Padres have never shared a dugout with Marcano, only meeting him in spring training.
“I’ve gotten to know him as a person and I think he’s a really good person,” Shildt said Tuesday before the Padres played the Los Angeles Angels.
“Obviously, this is something that baseball rightly takes very seriously, as it should,” Shildt added. “There are always consequences to your actions. But from my understanding and my personal relationship with him, which is very limited, he is a good young man. We make mistakes in life and I don’t think he runs away from them. He is clearly going to be punished for this. I just hope this doesn’t interrupt his life, because again, talking to him, he’s a good guy, and we all make mistakes. … It doesn’t need to be labeled or anything for one mistake.”
Major League Rule 21, posted in every clubhouse, states that betting on any baseball game in which a player, umpire, league official or team employee does not have the right to obligation to obtain results are punishable by a one-year suspension. Betting on a game in which the person has a duty to perform results in a lifetime ban.
MLB said it was informed in March of the betting activity by a legal sports betting operator. New surveillance measures put in place with MLB and sports betting have sparked attention to such wagering, a person familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity Tuesday because this detail has not been announced.
None of the punished players played the games they bet on, and all players denied to MLB that they had inside information regarding their bets or the games they bet on – testimony that, according to MLB, were consistent with data received from sportsbooks.
In its announcement, MLB detailed the alleged bets for each player.
Marcano’s 387 baseball bets included international games and 231 MLB-related bets for $87,319 from October 16-23, 2022 and last July 12-November 1. Twenty-five of those bets included betting on Pirates games while he was on baseball. the team’s major league roster. Although injured, he was receiving medical treatment at PNC Park last year.
Marcano bet almost exclusively on game outcomes and lost all of his parlay bets involving the Pirates, winning just 4.3% of all of his MLB-related bets.
Marcano is a career .217 hitter with five home runs, 34 RBIs and seven stolen bases, playing both infield and outfield.
“While the thorough investigation has revealed no evidence that games were compromised, influenced or manipulated in any way in this matter, protecting the integrity of our game is paramount,” the Pirates said in a press release.
The other four players did not bet on matches involving their assigned teams.
Kelly placed 10 bets on nine major league games from October 5 to 17, 2021, while he was a minor league player assigned to Houston’s Triple-A Sugar Land farm team. Bets included bets on outcomes, runs over/under, and total strikeouts of an individual pitcher. Three of the nine games involved the major league Astros. His stakes totaled $99.22 and earned him $28.30 in winnings.
Kelly, 31, was 3-2 with a 2.59 ERA in 28 games for the A’s this season, his last pitching Saturday in Atlanta. The former first-round pick has played in 46 games over the past three seasons.
Oakland manager Mark Kotsay said he “wished Michael the best” during a brief conversation.
“There’s an opportunity, with the year he’s had, for Michael to have that chance to play (again) in the big leagues,” Kotsay added. “We’ll have to see what happens when that decision has to be made, when he has the opportunity to come off a suspension. I believe in giving people a second chance.
Saalfrank, 26, pitched in 21 games for Arizona last year between the regular season and the playoffs, including three World Series games and two this year before being optioned to Triple-A Reno on the 1st may.
He placed 29 bets on baseball from September 9 to October 29, 2021 and March 9, 2022, including 28 on MLB and one bet on college baseball. He placed four bets on the big league Diamondbacks while on their Low A farm team’s injured list. His baseball bets totaled $445.87 on baseball, including $444.07 on MLB, and lost $272.64 on the MLB bets and $1.80 on the college bet. He won just five of 28 MLB bets, which included scores, runs and strikeouts.
Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said Saalfrank “made a bad decision” and that the suspension was “all anyone talks about” in the Diamondbacks clubhouse.
“What I know is the human being,” Lovullo added. “I know Andrew is remorseful. He knows he made a mistake. I haven’t spoken to him, but people have explained to me what he said and he feels very bad, but he will pay the necessary consequences.
Rodríguez, 23, competed at Double-A Reading this season. He placed 31 bets on baseball on September 30, 2021 and from June 5 to July 30, 2022, including 28 on MLB and three on college baseball. The total included seven involving the Chicago White Sox at the time he was assigned to their Double-A team in Birmingham, Alabama. Two of the White Sox bets involved outcomes and the rest involved runs scored. He bet $749.09 on baseball, including $724.09 on MLB-related bets including parlays.
Philadelphia acquired Rodríguez in April and manager Rob Thomson said he was unfamiliar with the 23-year-old Dominican.
“I really can’t comment on that, except that I know that everyone in the major leagues and the minor leagues has to understand Rule 21, and that goes through Major League Baseball, the rules on games of chance,” Thomson said.
Groome, a 25-year-old who had been on the minor league injured list since mid-April, placed 32 MLB-related bets from July 22, 2020 to July 24, 2021, including 24 on the Major League Team. Boston Red Sox. while assigned to Boston’s High-A team in Greenville, South Carolina. Sports details that it wagered $453.74 on 30 MLB games and suffered a net loss of $433.54, receiving payouts on just two bets. His bets included parlays.
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AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston in Philadelphia, John Marshall in Phoenix and Greg Beacham in Anaheim, Calif., and AP freelance reporter Michael Wagaman in Oakland contributed to this report.
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