RISKY BUSINESS AT THE BALLPARK
Minor League Baseball head sees high threat of scandal due to paltry pay and weak safeguards
FORT MYERS >> Pat O’Conner is worried.
It’s not that the President and CEO of Minor League Baseball has his head in the sand about the inevitability of increased wagering on minorleague baseball games as legal sports betting gets approved in more and more states.
It ’ s more that when O’Conner surveys that new landscape, he can see an unfortunate convergence of two forces which would pose a real and present threat for a repeat of the single-worst twoword combination there is (besides “Pete Rose”) in baseball: “Black Sox.”
The first force is that current legislation already adopted in state legislatures do not contain enough integrity safeguards when it comes to controlling and monitoring the betting on minor-league games — a regulatory state of affairs that aligns neatly with the views of established gaming companies.
The second force is that minor-league baseball players, who are not Minor League Baseball employees but em-
ployees of Major League Baseball, are paid a paltry sliver compared to their bigleague brethren, and thus, in theory, are more vulnerable to corruption.
Major League Baseball happens to agree with the viewpoint that the low pay in the minor leagues creates a higher risk of corruption, or an integrity incident. That perspective presents somewhat of a Catch-22 considering how successful MLB has been at maintaining the yawning gap in pay between minor- and major-leaguers.
O’Conner, who has been working with MiLB since 1993, oversees a 43-state operation with 7,500 players (MLB employees) and some 235 umpires and 160-plus official scorers. He knows his product well. If he’s willing to voice concerns about what amounts to a worst-case scenario on a not-so-distant horizon — another 1919 World Series White Sox-caliber betting scandal — perhaps his thoughts could help prevent that outcome.
“Without safeguards, I would say it’s a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ at some level,” said O’Conner about a baseball-betting transgression occurring. “Now, it may be local and small enough that it never rises to the level of a ‘scandal’ but think about this: You’re in A-ball, and you got a nice bonus but you’re making $2,000 a month, and a guy comes to you and says, ‘Hey kid, just the first pitch — throw the first pitch outside, that’s all you need to do. You’re going to throw a hundred more pitches before the night’s out, just make sure the first one’s outside.’
“OK, youmaynot affect the outcomeof the game but now you’re owned, you’re owned. And the next time he comes back, it may be something more. It may be more money, it may be a more egregious offense but you’re owned. A young and impressionable kid is not going to know he needs to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his career. Or his life. When you are in a position where ‘This may be my last year and I’ve never really had a good payday, and somebody offers me something?’ I’m not saying they would, and I would like to pray to god that they won’t, but it is a real threat.”
O’Conner’s concern on the vulnerability front of low-paid baseball players is shared by MLB.
“I think in general when I talk to people about the potential dangers of minor league betting, they understand that our players make a lot less money at the minor league level, they understand that our umpires and official scorers and others at the minor-league level make less money,” said Bryan Seeley, senior vice president of Major League Baseball, late last year. “Only two states passed laws this year, and that was West Virginia and New Jersey, and neither one of them, I believe, put any restrictions on that type of betting. It’s of concern. We’re monitoring minor-league betting, we’re going to take a real long look at what’s being offered in 2019 on minor-league games and see what we need to do in response to that.”
An MLB spokesman said, “Real-world examples show that the lower levels of any professional sport are more vulnerable to problems with sports betting than the higher levels.”
The disparity of pay between the major and minor leagues is enormous. The major-league minimum is $555,000 this year, with the average salary at $4.09 million last season.
Minor- leaguers with some major-league experience or who get a first taste of the big leagues this season will make either $90,400 or $45,300 this season. But that population amounts to a fraction of the approximately 7,500 minor-leaguers who do not get paid for spring training, receive a $25 food per diem and receive a monthly salary (for five months) ranging between $1,100 at SingleAball up to a higher four-figure monthly salary in Triple A.