ESPN MLB insider Author of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports”
Major League Baseball has disciplined umpire Pat Hoberg for violating the league’s gambling rules, sources told ESPN, 10 days after the league levied a lifetime ban on a player for gambling and suspended four others for one year.
Hoberg has denied betting on baseball and is appealing the discipline, sources told ESPN. The exact nature of the discipline is unknown, but Hoberg has not umpired a game this season. The league, in a statement, did not indicate whether its investigation into Hoberg showed that he bet on baseball.
In the statement, MLB said: “During this year’s Spring Training, Major League Baseball commenced an investigation regarding a potential violation of MLB’s sports betting policies by Umpire Pat Hoberg. Mr. Hoberg was removed from the field during the pendency of that investigation. While MLB’s investigation did not find any evidence that games worked by Mr. Hoberg were compromised or manipulated in any way, MLB determined that discipline was warranted. Mr. Hoberg has chosen to appeal that determination. Therefore, we cannot comment further until the appeal process is concluded.”
Messages left for Hoberg by ESPN earlier this week went unreturned. The Athletic first reported Hoberg’s discipline.
If he were found to have bet on baseball, Hoberg would be in violation of MLB’s Rule 21, which punishes those who gambled on games in which they were involved with a lifetime ban and games in which they weren’t with a yearlong suspension.
The last major American professional sports official known to bet on games was NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who in 2007 was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and transmitting betting information through interstate commerce after admitting that he bet on games over four seasons and passed along tips to gamblers.
Hoberg, 37, is best known for his perfect performance in Game 2 of the World Series, when he was home-plate umpire and called all 129 balls and strikes correctly. He is widely regarded as the best ball-strike umpire in MLB.
Hoberg first umpired major league games in 2014 and became a full-time umpire in 2017. Hoberg umpired postseason games every year from 2018-2022 and was assigned to pool games in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
MLB on June 4 week banned San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano after a legal sportsbook informed the league that he had bet on games while a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Marcano, 24, became the first active player in a century to receive a lifetime ban after he placed more than $150,000 worth of bets in October 2022 and from July to November 2023, according to MLB.
Oakland A’s reliever Michael Kelly and three minor league players – Arizona reliever Andrew Saalfrank, Padres starter Jay Groome and Philadelphia infielder Jose Rodriguez – were suspended for a season for betting on major league games while in the minors. Each wagered less than $1,000.
The league investigated and cleared Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani after his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was accused of stealing more than $16 million from Ohtani to cover sports-gambling losses. Mizuhara pleaded guilty June 4 to bank and tax-fraud charges that carry a maximum prison sentence of 33 years.
Additionally, Ohtani’s former Los Angeles Angels teammate David Fletcher is under investigation by MLB for allegations that he gambled with an illegal bookmaker, sources told ESPN’s T.J. Quinn.
“The strict enforcement of Major League Baseball’s rules and policies governing gambling conduct is a critical component of upholding our most important priority: protecting the integrity of our games for the fans,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement announcing the players’ discipline. “The longstanding prohibition against betting on Major League Baseball games by those in the sport has been a bedrock principle for over a century. We have been clear that the privilege of playing in baseball comes with a responsibility to refrain from engaging in certain types of behavior that are legal for other people.”
Sportico places the value of the franchise and its team-related holdings at $4.2 billion.
Sixth Street’s investment, reportedly approved by Major League Baseball on Monday, will go toward upgrades to Oracle Park and the Giants’ training facilities in Scottsdale, Arizona, as well as Mission Rock, the team’s real estate development project located across McCovey Cove from the ballpark.
Giants president and CEO Larry Baer called it the “first significant investment in three decades” and said the money would not be spent on players.
“This is not about a stockpile for the next Aaron Judge,” Baer told the New York Times. “This is about improvements to the ballpark, making big bets on San Francisco and the community around us, and having the firepower to take us into the next generation.”
Sixth Street is the primary owner of National Women’s Soccer League franchise Bay FC. It also has investments in the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs and Spanish soccer powers Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.
“We believe in the future of San Francisco, and our sports franchises like the Giants are critical ambassadors for our city of innovation, showcasing to the world what’s only made possible here,” Sixth Street co-founder and CEO Alan Waxman said in the news release. “We believe in Larry and the leadership team’s vision for this exciting new era, and we’re proud to be partnering with them as they execute the next chapter of San Francisco Giants success.”
Founded in 2009 and based in San Francisco, Sixth Street has assets totaling $75 billion, according to Front Office Sports.
TOKYO — Shohei Ohtani seems impervious to a variety of conditions that afflict most humans — nerves, anxiety, distraction — but it took playing a regular-season big-league game in his home country to change all of that.
After the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Opening Day 4-1 win over the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Dome, Ohtani made a surprising admission. “It’s been a while since I felt this nervous playing a game,” he said. “It took me four or five innings.”
Ohtani had two hits and scored twice, and one of his outs was a hard liner that left his bat at more than 96 mph, so the nerves weren’t obvious from the outside. But clearly the moment, and its weeklong buildup, altered his usually stoic demeanor.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Shohei nervous,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But one thing I did notice was how emotional he got during the Japanese national anthem. I thought that was telling.”
As the Dodgers began the defense of last year’s World Series win, it became a night to showcase the five Japanese players on the two teams. For the first time in league history, two Japanese pitchers — the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga — faced each other on Opening Day. Both pitched well, with Imanaga throwing four hitless innings before being removed after 69 pitches.
“Seventy was kind of the number we had for Shota,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It was the right time to take him out.”
The Dodgers agreed, scoring three in the fifth inning off reliever Ben Brown. Imanaga kept the Dodgers off balance, but his career-high four walks created two stressful innings that ran up his pitch count.
Yamamoto rode the adrenaline of pitching in his home country, routinely hitting 98 with his fastball and vexing the Cubs with a diving splitter over the course of five three-hit innings. He threw with a kind of abandon, finding a freedom that often eluded him last year in his first year in America.
“I think last year to this year, the confidence and conviction he has throwing the fastball in the strike zone is night and day,” Roberts said. “If he can continue to do that, I see no reason he won’t be in the Cy Young conversation this season.”
Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki went hitless in four at bats — the Cubs had only three hits, none in the final four innings against four relievers out of the Dodgers’ loaded bullpen — and rookie Roki Sasaki will make his first start of his Dodger career in the second and final game of the series Wednesday.
“I don’t think there was a Japanese baseball player in this country who wasn’t watching tonight,” Roberts said.
The Dodgers were without Mookie Betts, who left Japan on Monday after it was decided his illness would not allow him to play in this series. And less than an hour before game time, first baseman Freddie Freemanwas scratched with what the team termed “left rib discomfort,” a recurrence of an injury he first sustained during last year’s playoffs.
The night started with a pregame celebration that felt like an Olympic opening ceremony in a lesser key. There were Pikachus on the field and a vaguely threatening video depicting the Dodgers and Cubs as Monster vs. Monster. World home-run king Saduharu Oh was on the field before the game, and Roberts called meeting Oh “a dream come true.”
For the most part, the crowd was subdued, as if it couldn’t decide who or what to root for, other than Ohtani. It was admittedly confounding: throughout the first five innings, if fans rooted for the Dodgers they were rooting against Imanaga, but rooting for the Cubs meant rooting against Yamamoto. Ohtani, whose every movement is treated with a rare sense of wonder, presented no such conflict.
JUPITER, Fla. — St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn was scratched from the lineup for their exhibition game on Tuesday because of soreness in his right wrist.
Winn was replaced by Jose Barrero in the Grapefruit League matchup with the Miami Marlins, with the regular-season opener nine days away. Winn, who was a 2020 second-round draft pick by the Cardinals, emerged as a productive everyday player during his rookie year in 2024. He batted .267 with 15 home runs, 11 stolen bases and 57 RBIs in 150 games and was named as one of three finalists for the National League Gold Glove Award that went to Ezequiel Tovar of the Colorado Rockies.
Winn had minor surgery after the season to remove a cyst from his hand. In 14 spring training games, he’s batting .098 (4 for 41) with 12 strikeouts.