Yahoo Sports senior MLB analyst Jake Mintz and senior MLB analyst Jordan Shusterman react to the news of Tucupita Marcano’s lifetime ban from MLB and the one-year suspensions of four other minor league players for gambling on baseball. Hear the full conversation on the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video transcript
Tuca Pita Marano, who is a injured mediocre utility man currently employed by the San Diego.
Padres officially received a lifetime ban from major league baseball for gambling on major league baseball games.
In that announcement, four other players Andrews Frank, who’s a pitcher for the Diamondbacks, Michael Kelly, a pitcher for the Oakland A’s Jose Rodriguez, an infielder for the Philadelphia Phillies and Jay Groom who is a pitcher for the San Diego Padres.
All received one year suspensions for betting on MLB games.
Their suspensions were, were, uh, were shorter because they bet on those MLB games while they were in the minor leagues.
That is the key distinction here.
Another key distinction between Marca’s action and the actions of those four other players is Marcao was betting a whole lot more money on games.
A whole lot more times that totaled around 100 and 50,000.
All the other guys were, I believe below $500 in total bets.
Now that as we all know, llB has these, these very close gambling partners, those partners, uh, clearly as part of this deal was, hey, um, so we’re gonna have all these deals and we’re all gonna make a bunch of money and it’s gonna be great.
But should you realize that someone with an account with your website where you can gamble your money is associated with a baseball player?
You need to let us know ASAP.
And that is what has happened here.
None of the gambling activity was impacting play on the field that the integrity of the wins and losses of the performance on the diamond.
None of that was swayed by any of this gambling because the four minor leaguers were not in the major leagues when they made these bets.
And T Capito Marano was on the A L MLB is taking such a strong stance here because they need to keep church and state separate.
The play on the field cannot be influenced by all the gambling that is happening around it.
It is very difficult for MLB to keep those two things separate because it has embraced the world of gambling because it makes them a whole boatload of money.
And so trying to thread that needle is going to be difficult for the league moving forward.
And I think that part of Manfred’s statement saying 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.
It is really the, the one thing that is a non negotiable and, and, and that’s why we get here