Major League Baseball said Friday night it has disciplined umpire Pat Hoberg for violating the league’s gambling rules, and that he is being held out of games during this season while an appeal is considered. MLB acknowledged the existence of the investigation in response to inquiries from The Athletic.
The rise of sports gambling has left a pockmark on baseball all season. Multiple players have been punished for gambling violations, including Tucupita Marcano, who got a lifetime ban for betting on baseball. Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, pleaded guilty to stealing from his client in the wake of losing millions in illegal non-baseball sports bets. Now, an umpire has been punished, with Hoberg becoming the only known umpire in recent history to have been disciplined for a matter related to gambling.
Hoberg, who has not umpired a game since last year’s postseason, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. The specifics of the allegations against him were not immediately known. Glen Caplin, a spokesperson for MLB, said the league could not provide more details while the appeal was pending.
Hoberg earned praise for accurately calling balls and strikes during the 2022 World Series, which helped to cement his reputation as one of the sport’s highest-performing umpires.
“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,” MLB said in a statement. “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,” the league said. “Mr. Hoberg has chosen to appeal that determination. Therefore, we cannot comment further until the appeal process is concluded.”
Commissioner Rob Manfred will hear the appeal.
Hoberg, 37, became a full-time major-league umpire in 2017, and started working games professionally in 2009, according to MLB’s umpires media guide. The tracking site umpscorecards.com gave Hoberg a perfect score during the game he worked behind the plate during the 2022 World Series, his first such assignment.
The discipline against Hoberg is just the latest in a line of recent gambling-related developments to rock a sport whose history has been shaped by various betting scandals.
Ohtani’s former interpreter, Mizuhara, recently pleaded guilty to fraud for stealing nearly $17 million from Ohtani to pay gambling debts. David Fletcher, one of Ohtani’s former teammates with the Angels, remains under investigation by the league for making non-baseball sports bets with the same illegal bookmaker used by Mizuhara. MLB also recently banned Marcano for life for gambling on baseball and suspended four other players for a year after receiving information about their bets from a legal U.S. sportsbook. A person briefed on the process, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said the probe of Hoberg was unrelated to the one that produced Marcano’s ban and the four other suspensions.
Other North American leagues have struggled since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2018 paved the way for expanded betting in much of the country. Players, coaches and others have had suspensions and legal cases. Still, allegations of misconduct by referees have been rare. In 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy pleaded guilty to sharing inside information for betting purposes. He spent 15 months in prison.
Baseball umpires are covered by the same MLB statute that regulates player gambling, officially known as Rule 21, which has ranges of punishments for numerous kinds of violations.
The most severe is that anyone found to have gambled on a baseball game they are directly tied to — “any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform,” as the rules formally put it — is to be banned permanently from the game. The punishment for gambling on baseball otherwise is one year. There are also provisions covering a wide range of other activities, including bets with illegal bookmakers.
(Top photo of umpire Pat Hoberg: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
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