Lennon: Manfred navigating MLB through the tricky world of sports betting

Commissioner Rob Manfred feels confident in his ability to penalize any players who run afoul of MLB’s gambling regulations, a trend that is likely on the uptick after multiple offenders already have been disciplined this season — along with the interpreter for $700-million global superstar Shohei Ohtani.

But what about protecting them?

With the rapid proliferation of legalized sports betting, an exploding market that MLB has enthusiastically embraced, the headlong pursuit of these revenue streams tend to outpace thoughtful consideration of the consequences. Putting the integrity of the game at risk is an obvious one. Beyond that, however, is jeopardizing the safety of the players, who seem more reachable than ever in this social media era.

Personal attacks by disgruntled fans are nothing new. That’s been happening on X (formerly Twitter) since the app was invented nearly two decades ago. But gambling has raised the stakes on what previously was merely emotional blowback over wins and losses. Prop bets can narrow the focus more to individual players, and some already have notified MLB over rising threat levels related to betting activity.

“Obviously, any time a player receives a threat from any source on any topic it is a matter of concern to us that we take really seriously in terms of our central security operation and the regional people that we employ with each club,” Manfred said this week during a meeting with the Baseball Writers Association of America. “I will say this about players. I have had — just in complete candor — in the last month or so, players mentioning this issue to me. It’s obviously one that’s of concern and we’ve been discussing internally what we should do to be more proactive in this area.”

Just last month, a few of these episodes were reported by USA Today, which described players being followed home from the ballpark as well as getting death threats that also mention their families.

“You blow a save, you don’t come through, you get it all,” Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald told USA Today. “You cost me all of this money… I’m going to kill you and then kill your family. It gets ugly really quickly. It’s scary, and it’s sad. It used to be fans who were upset because you blew the game for the team, but now it’s gambling. These people don’t really care about the Diamondbacks. They just care about their bets.”

But what can be done to curtail this behavior? The legalization of sports gambling not only made it more accessible to existing bettors but also helped create generations of new ones. Policing these ever-rising waves is like trying to hold back the tide at the beach. Even with security protocols in place to handle such things, the noise around the players is only going to increase. And it’s ironic that MLB itself is complicit by being a business partner with the same companies responsible for helping to inflame the problem.

As for the on-field complications, the swift prosecution of Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was no doubt meant to change the troublesome narrative around the two-time MVP as soon as possible. Mizuhara pled guilty to fraud — not theft — after swiping as much as $17 million from Ohtani’s bank accounts in order to pay off massive gambling debts as both sides asserted the Dodgers’ slugger had no knowledge of the matter, in any capacity.

Only a week after Mizuhara’s plea deal, MLB announced the suspensions of five players for violating the sport’s gambling policy, including one — the Padres’ Tucupita Marcano — receiving a lifetime ban for betting on the Pirates when he was still on Pittsburgh’s major-league roster.

As you might expect, Manfred chose to praise MLB’s vigilance in rooting out the offenders rather than sound an alarm over the game’s integrity becoming increasingly more difficult to safeguard.

“I am generally a believer that penalties, and generally a demonstration of your ability to figure out what’s going on, serves as a deterrent,” Manfred said. “To work your whole life to get to the major leagues, in whatever role, and then to lose that over sports betting, gambling, that’s a huge penalty.

“I try to keep perspective on this. I think that the relationship that we’ve built with sports betting enterprises, which has given us the ability to use technology to monitor betting activities, I really, truly believe that we are in a better position to know what’s going on today than we were in the old days where it was all illegal. And while we may not read about it because of discipline or whatever, we didn’t know what was going on. That’s kind of like going through life with your eyes closed.”

Maybe so. But we’d also argue that MLB is naive to think the consequences of gambling’s expansion, despite its legality, can be successfully kept on a leash. Just because a player’s online activity can be monitored doesn’t mean he’s unable to impact a game’s outcome (or tailor his own performance) to benefit other parties. That’s where it gets tricky. What if a player runs up a legal gambling debt that he tries to mitigate by things he does between the lines?

As far we we know, these scenarios haven’t come up yet. But given the myriad problems gambling has caused for the society at large, baseball certainly isn’t immune, and these issues aren’t going away.

Major upgrade for Olympics?

With baseball returning for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, a number of MLB players have expressed their desire to participate, just like their NBA and NHL counterparts. The problem, as always, is the timing.

So far, the owners seem unwilling to put the regular season on hold — i.e., sacrifice those revenues — or risk their game’s biggest stars in a two-week tournament that runs the second half of July. The World Baseball Classic, which takes place in the middle of spring training, was created to help increase MLB’s global reach after the sport was removed from the Olympic cycle. The WBC is not ideal either (consider the Edwin Diaz debacle), and the Olympics is an even bigger ask but with a bigger payoff on the international stage.

To that end, Manfred set up a meeting between the owners and Casey Wasserman, the chairman of the LA28 Olympic committee, to start some dialogue on the proposal.

“He was very persuasive,” Manfred said. “I sat with Casey last week and we were talking about what can be done. What exactly what it would look like? What are the compromises we would have to make in terms of our seasons? So I remain open-minded on that topic.”

Manfred pointed out that it’s probably not realistic to think about baseball’s long-term foothold in the Olympics because, logistically, places like Paris for instance aren’t going to build baseball stadiums for the event. But the L.A. area is well-suited for such a tournament, with Dodger Stadium on the edge of downtown and Angel Stadium only 30 miles away (San Diego’s Petco Park is 122 miles from Chavez Ravine). Plus, college and minor-league venues could made available.

“When you focus on L.A., it is an opportunity that we need to think about,” Manfred said. “And I should say this, too, in doing my player rounds, there’s player interest on this topic. So that’s important.”

Who wouldn’t want a gold medal?

Ohtani essentially put his walk year at risk to help Team Japan win the 2023 WBC. Francisco Lindor holds international competition (and representing Puerto Rico) in such high regard that he refused to answer when asked if he’d prefer to win a WBC or World Series, saying only that he wants to win multiples titles in both. Sounds like MLB can count Juan Soto in as well.

“Any chance I get to represent the Dominican Republic is always going to be a fun experience for me,” Soto said. “And I’m always going to be open to it. If I feel healthy, if I’m in the right spot, I would love to do it.”

Stop the technicolor nightmare

It’s been four years now since the major-league All-Stars were forced to ditch their own uniforms in favor of wearing specially-designed Nike creations for the Midsummer Classic.

Hopefully this was the last time. The ugly color combinations (taupe and tangerine?) along with the softball-style outfits on display Tuesday night at Globe Life Field was a new low in the disappointing trend. The marketing attempt has been a high-profile disaster by all accounts. And what better way to showcase the sport by highlighting the players in their actual team colors, making them easier to identify while also giving fans more of a connection to the clubs they root for.

Having players wear their own uniforms was one of the things that made the All-Star Game special for nearly a century. Finally, it seems that Manfred might be ready to end the madness. The All-Star Game only lasted 2:28, the shortest since 1988 , but it was still too long to look at those hideous uniforms.

“I’m aware of the sentiment on this issue,” Manfred said. “I think where my head is on it, it’s something we’re going to have a conversation about coming out of the All-Star Game. We got a lot of uniform things going on. Obviously the conversations have to involve the players, first and foremost, with Nike and some of our partners. But I am aware of the sentiment and I do know why people kind of like that tradition. There will be conversations about that.”

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball’s Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.