MLB Fires Umpire Pat Hoberg For Violation Of The League’s Betting Rules

Pat Hoberg once pitched a perfect game. Well, he didn’t actually “pitch” it, but he called it. According to Umpire Scorecards, as the home plate umpire during Game 2 of the 2022 World Series, Hoberg called every pitch correctly. In fact, Hoberg – a full-time blue since 2017, and a post-season umpire in every year from 2018 through 2022 – was considered one of the best umpires in the game. Unfortunately, judgment with respect to balls and strikes does not necessarily relate to judgment in real life. To that end, MLB announced this week that Hoberg has been terminated for violating the league’s rules related to gambling on the sport.

Investigation/Termination

In February of last year, MLB opened an investigation into the umpire, and subsequently removed Hoberg from spring training. In May, MLB’s Senior Vice President of On-Field Operations, Mike Hill, determined that the Hoberg’s conduct and judgment made it such that he could not be trusted “to maintain the integrity” of the game, which is requirement spelled out in Article 9.A of the collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the MLB Umpires Association. The public was not made aware of the termination while the CBA-allowed appeals process played out. This week Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that after considering the findings of the “Neutral Factfinder” that he would uphold the initial edict and deny Hoberg’s appeal. Per the CBA, Hoberg is eligible to apply for reinstatement no earlier than the start of next year’s spring training.

Summary of Facts

Here are the quick – but important – high (low) lights of the saga. Hoberg shared a legal betting account with a known but unnamed professional poker player. According to the Commissioner, the investigation “revealed no evidence that Mr. Hoberg placed bets on baseball directly or that he or anyone else manipulated games in any way.” Hoberg has adamantly denied that he ever bet on baseball, and an analysis of his electronics and other bettor data does not show any signs that he did. However, his partner in non-crime did bet on baseball, and MLB believed that Hoberg either knew or should have known that someone with whom he was sharing a betting account was betting on the sport that employs him.

Informing MLB

Naysayers of legal sports gambling will point to this as yet another incidence of allowing the fox into the henhouse, and the troubles that can and will ensue. However, betting on sports (and baseball in particular) has been happening for time immemorial, and long before May of 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that banned commercial sports betting. And it must be noted that Hoberg’s case came to the attention of MLB when a legal sports betting operator informed the league that the umpire opened an account in his name and “that the personal electronic device associated with this account was also associated with the legal sports betting account of an individual not covered by MLB’s policies” who had bet on baseball. Gone are the days of Pete Rose dialing an illegal bookie from the dugout phone to place bets. Now the legal betting services are monitoring their clients and their action, and reporting wrongdoing to the appropriate authorities.

Ironically, Hoberg opened the betting account in his own name after he attended a MLB training that instructed umpires not to have others place bets (on sports other than baseball, which is allowed) on their behalf or to place bets (again, not on baseball) on behalf of others. So when the sportsbook noticed that Hoberg’s personal electronic device was being utilized to access a different account that did bet on baseball, the company felt obliged to inform the league.

The Messages

Hoberg and his friend communicated their betting activities via the Telegram messaging app. Their communications included a ledger of wins and losses. However, when initially contacted by MLB, both Hoberg and his betting friend deleted their Telegram thread, and subsequently, Hoberg deleted his entire Telegram account, erasing both sides of the communication chain. MLB found that these suspicious actions materially interfered with their investigation. MLB and the umpire later attempted to retrieve the messages, to no avail. In his defense, Hoberg claimed that he deleted the messages to avoid embarrassment over the frequency and amounts of his (non-baseball) betting activity.

Betting Activity

The investigation was able to get into granular detail regarding all of Hoberg’s and his friend’s wagers. Fortunately, only eight baseball bets were made over five games when Hoberg was an official. According to the report, “a detailed analysis does not reveal any pattern to indicate that Hoberg’s calls were influenced by the bets being made by” his betting partner. In fact, in one August, 2021 game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Mets, the umpire’s strike zone accuracy score was 98.89% – he missed only two pitches the entire game – which was higher than both his personal average in 2021, and the average of the entire MLB umpiring crew for the season.

Best Interests of the Game

Fay Vincent passed away earlier this week. As Deputy Commissioner of MLB under A. Bartlett Giamatti, he was integral in negotiating the settlement wherein Pete Rose agreed to withdraw from Major League Baseball for an indefinite period of time due to his betting on the game. In fact, the stress of the Rose incident has long been considered the cause of Giamatti’s fatal heart attack just eight days after the banishment, which then allowed Vincent to become Commissioner. It is thus fitting that the current commissioner finalized the decision regarding Pat Hoberg this week. It is an appropriate tribute to a man who viewed himself – and named his book – “The Last Commissioner,” whose every action was intended in the best interests of the game. Firing Hoberg – regardless of his talent as an umpire – shows that Manfred, like Vincent, is upholding those same values.