This is an argument for mercy. Somebody please send it to Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.
Among the most important decisions Commissioner Rob Manfred will make in the course of his career as baseball’s top cop — and the one for which he will be most remembered — is how he punishes Cleveland Guardian pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz.
Commissioner Manfred: Don’t do the easy thing. Do the thing that teaches the most people about the best way to act. Teach justice and mercy. It’s a big moment. You can’t go wrong with justice and mercy.
GUARDIANS PITCHERS INDICTED IN GAMBLING SCHEME INVOLVING MLB GAMES
As of today, the most memorable decision Manfred has made was an awful one — he pulled the All-Star Game from Atlanta in 2021. Manfred’s decision was taken in response to Georgia’s then-new voting law, which left-wing activists had labeled “voter suppression.” (It was not, only absurdist ideologues still argue anymore that it was, and we have to assume that Manfred got truly awful advice as politics isn’t his world.) The All-Star game and MLB Draft were relocated to Denver that year. It was a truly dumb move, a capitulation to “woke,” and one for which many serious people will never give him a pass. Team Manfred figured out that it had been a face plant and, in 2023, decided to award Atlanta the All-Star Game this past summer. Good. One mistake corrected.
Manfred has also overseen the introduction of a pitch clock and the implantation of the rule placing a runner on second base to start extra innings in MLB.
Both changes are generally seen as major improvements to the game, but the decision to pull the All-Star game from Atlanta left a mark on Manfred’s reputation for judgment.
Now Manfred has a chance to repair that scar by exercising excellent judgment.
Both Clase and Ortiz are accused of cheating by throwing purposefully bad single pitches in a game — pitches which are bet on by the world via what are called “prop bets.” The propositions in these cases seems to have been that Clase or Ortiz would not throw a strike on a particular pitch. Even a casual fan knows that’s a pretty easy thing for a pitcher to guarantee.
So if a pitcher agrees beforehand that the first pitch he throws in a game (or an inning if he expects to pitch longer than one inning), bettors “in the know” pile on the cash betting the pitch would not be a strike.
Both Clase, 27, and Ortiz, 26, are, of course, entitled to the presumption of innocence in prosecutions if they don’t plead guilty, but the facts as alleged don’t look good for them. Their indictments on federal charges this month detail how the two allegedly intentionally rigged individual pitches, benefiting gamblers to the tune of about $400,000. Both men do not appear to have made very much money from the bets, but the facts will come out.
They are charged with wire fraud and conspiracy, and Clase and Ortiz could each face up to 65 years in prison as a consequence. As both are allegedly first offenders in a non-violent crime, it is unlikely they will face prison time, though they could.
Commissioner Manfred, by contrast, must decide what to do for the rest of the players’ lives, as well as the lives of their families. Both players are alleged to have purposefully thrown terrible pitches, which is, of course, cheating. There are more sophisticated ways of cheating, but this one is full-proof. It is also remarkably easy to spot irregular patterns in betting that tips the betting industry to a “fix being in.”
It is not cheating of a sophisticated sort. it is, in fact, a pretty dumb way to cheat as it is almost certain to get caught up by the very sophisticated overwatch that gambling concerns operate.
Most baseball fans know two major precedents when it comes to cheating in baseball.
In 1919, eight players for the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the World Series that year. All eight were charged. All eight were acquitted. But the newly created position of Commissioner of Baseball had been filled by a hanging judge, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who banned all eight from playing in the majors for life. Wikipedia is not a reliable source for much, but as of Monday it read that Judge Landis “is remembered for his resolution of the Black Sox Scandal, in which he expelled eight members of the Chicago White Sox from organized baseball for conspiring to lose the 1919 World Series and repeatedly refused their reinstatement requests.”
Take a quick peek at the entry for Bart Giamatti while you are perusing Wikipedia (again, reliable only in rare occasions.)
Commissioner Giamatti‘s tenure as baseball’s big boss was short. He died of a heart attack five months into the job. But, in those five months he did one big thing: “Giamatti’s most notable act as Commissioner,” Wikipedia tells us, “was to negotiate the agreement resolving the Pete Rose betting scandal in which Rose was permitted to voluntarily withdraw from the sport to avoid further punishment.”
Rose’s exile lasted past “Charlie Hustle’s” death in September 2024. In May 2025, the nameless guardians of baseball’s Hall of Fame “reinstated” Rose, meaning he can now be considered for the Hall of Fame in the future. Baseball’s greatest hitter will get in eventually.
It never made much sense to confuse Rose’s off-the-field conduct with his remarkable record as a player. It would be stupid and virtue signaling of the worst sort to continue to ignore Rose’s extraordinary career because he bet on other teams while the manager of the Reds.
Baseball did a fine job of screwing Rose over. The reason? The “integrity of the game” is usually offered up, but that’s harder and harder to say without laughing, as sports at every level has chosen to take the money legalized gambling offers.
Clase and Oritiz are both from the Dominican Republic, which any visitor will note as home to (1) a great deal of grinding poverty (though not as bad as next door neighbor Haiti); (2) a gazillion baseball diamonds everywhere (3) some extraordinary slums and (4) a pronounced entrepreneurial spirit — there are small businesses are everywhere.
Baseball is by far the sport of choice in the Dominican Republic. Commissioner Manfred: Don’t do the easy thing. Do the thing that teaches the most people about the best way to act. Teach justice and mercy. It’s a big moment. You can’t go wrong with justice and mercy.
In the Dominican Republic, baseball is nearly a religion. Baseball is, for example, far more popular than soccer. The DR is also a factory of MLB players, some of whom are signed to contracts at age 14 or even younger. Fox Sports has dug into the incredible pressure on kids to make deals. It is a very poor country and one way up and out is baseball.
Once a DR player gets stateside, there will be lectures and guidance at every level of play about the dangers of gambling and the need to pick your friends wisely. But, of course, the Cleveland Guardians failed at whatever they tried to do when it came to educating young players about the risk gambling poses to them and to the game.
When it comes time to announce his ruling, the first thing Manfred should do is announce that both players will never put on a Guardians jersey again and that their contracts are void. Cleveland is a well run club with great owners, front office staff, managers and coaches. But, they failed comprehensively to drive home the sport-killing nature of gambling for baseball of any sort, but especially of the kind when you are intentionally going to make a terrible play.
So the club should suffer for its failure. And so should the players.
But, what is proportionate here? Everyone that is saying “lifetime ban,” is actually saying “ruin their lives,” because they have one skill set. This sort of penalty is disproportionate.
MLB, like the NFL and NBA, have welcomed sports gambling into their revenue streams. The assumption that every game is sheep-dipped in wagers by millions of bettors is a given. How to punish cheaters taking advantage of their position?
The default answer of “lifetime ban” is not the answer. Especially not when the players come from a poor country and almost certainly from educational systems that are not known for their excellence. (School is mandatory in the DR only until age 14, though the DR does have private schools as well as public schools.) I don’t know the particulars of either Claude’s or Ortiz’s family structure and status, but, their profile is not likely to be that of a MLB draftee coming out of college or a high-profile program for older teenagers.
What would be an appropriate punishment? Perhaps 90% of their salary in year one of their punishment goes to MLB for distribution to charities of MLB’s choice; year 2 sees 80% go to those charities, year 3 70% etc. If they stick in the big leagues for another 10 years they can keep their 11th year salary. And, as noted, they have to be assigned by the Commissioner to another team not named the Guardians.
I don’t know if Commissioner Manfred recalls his Shakespeare. But if he does, I hope he recalls the great speech in favor of mercy by Portia to Shylock in that play:
“The quality of mercy is not strain’d.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s”
Don’t ban them for life, Commissioner Manfred. Make it severe, but not career-ending. Send a message, but not the predictable one. This week of Thanksgiving, everyone ought to be able to recall those who have done them good turns. This time next year, I hope Clase and Ortiz and their families are thankful for a commissioner who was brave enough not to do the obvious thing.
Hugh Hewitt is host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
