Commissioner yet to decide Atlanta Braves punishment
By Fred Owens
Yo-Ho-Ho, you’re fired
In a separate piece, Rosenthal revealed one of the other teams under investigation; the Pirates or rather an employee.
It seems that the a few years back, Bucs Director of Latin American Scouting Rene Gayo was a naughty boy. . .err scout. Apparently Gayo facilitated the sale of a player – by a so far unnamed Mexican League team – to the Pirates. The Mexican League team appreciated his help so much they put lots of thank you pesos in his piggy bank.
The Pirates organization was not involved aside from taking a the word of a scout who worked for them for more than a decade. As a result Rosenthal’s source said the Pirates would not face punishment.
The Pirates fired Gayo today and released a statement which said in part:
"“we had been apprised of Major League Baseball’s investigation into alleged Rules violations committed by Rene. . . and the fact that MLB intends to discipline Rene as a result of those violations. Other than confirming our profound disappointment. . . we will have no further comment on the investigation or MLB’s intended discipline.”"
The interesting part of that is not the lack of punishment for the team; they did nothing wrong. The indication that MLB is going to discipline Gayo in some way is however new.
When the Braves investigation started and many times since, I suggested the individuals who carried out the rule violations could be punished as well as the team. We now know MLB can do that. Perhaps that’s why Coppolella hired a lawyer so quickly.