Money, Ego, and Pride: The Sources of the Next Great MLB Scandal?

If you take a cursory glance at the major scandals in baseball history, the three commonalities of each tie them together neatly, as if there was a magic formula:

Money + Ego + Pride/Time Period = Scandal

It's a different type of Moneyball formula that doesn't quantify offense or defense. It's use exists to justify a different kind of forecast; a forecast that just may determine the source of Major League Baseball's next big scandal.

Speak to the media about this, off the record, and you may not receive a satisfactory answer. Some have no idea what to say. Look in the past, however, and we may find our answer.

THE 1919 BLACK SOX SCANDAL

This was a simple idea: Lose a few games and get paid a little extra for it.  Only these were World Series games. This simple idea became more complex as the series was played. Who was in?  Who was out? 

The concept stemmed from anger on the players' side for being paid so little by Chicago White Sox owner Charlie Comiskey as well as the nearby existence of shady characters, at first playing on the egos of the alleged eight teammates before threatening violence. 

The pride of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson comes into light as well. Did he participate or, as an illiterate man, did he simply misunderstand?  Would his pride have allowed him to get involved in the first place? 

The scandal marred the game and allowed for the creation of baseball's first commissioner. Yet even a man with the power of Kennesaw "Mountain"Landis couldn't stop scandals in baseball from happening again.

PETE ROSE

Betting again, by a man addicted to gambling and the thrill of competition. Rose's ego wouldn't let him admit wrongdoing, until his desire to cash in via a tell-all memoir made his earlier denials appear foolish. Baseball's Hit King is now a shell of the hero he once was, playing the Vegas Card Show circuit to the highest bidder on the block.

THE '80s AND DRUGS

It was two clubhouse flunkies involved with a handful of bad people who became dealers of cocaine to MLB players, a need of these two men's ego to be able to satisfy the desires of their idols, from Dave Parker to Tim Raines, from Keith Hernandez to Willie Mays Aikens. 

There was money to be made, stories to be told and pride to be fed. It landed some in jail destroyed others in the process.  

STRIKES, CAPS & COLLUSION

Every strike and work stoppage in baseball history can be drilled down to three issues: Money, Ego & Pride. There is money to be split and saved (their doomed effort at salary cap implementation), egos to be caressed, and pride of winning and losing the fight.

It took the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and another five months for a settlement to be reached, but the game was tarnished nonetheless. 

Collusion has happened more than once, based upon owners trying to set the money market for players themselves, their egos not able to grapple with free agency and offer & counter-offer games they play against one another.

Just like the game itself, collusion is a team sport.

JIM BOWDEN

When the FBI looks into a Major League GM’s personal financial records, you know something's amiss.

Once baseball's youngest general manager, how can a few thousand here or there skimmed off the top of international signings matter to a man who occupies one of the most coveted positions in sports? 

Is it the ego of thinking he can get away with it? Or the pride of never admitting his guilt once caught?  The bet here is this story is far from over. Watch its web weave beyond the United States and Latin America, into Asia and other points east.

THE STEROID ERA

A-Rod. Barry Bonds.  Roger Clemens.  Mark McGwire.  Some of the biggest names of all time became enveloped in arguably baseball's deepest and longest-running scandal. 

There was the Bonds ego to use, the Clemens pride to deny, and the A-Rod dollars that needed to be justified. Until a test can be developed to detect human growth hormone, this scandal will persist. 

Players will continue to be caught, thanks to the foolishness of a slow-to-destroy players union to the carelessness of Jason Grimsley to the sleaziness of Kirk Radomski. This scandal is the epitome of Money, Ego, and Pride.

So what's next? 

Just as Richard Nixon's Watergate was not the last presidential scandal, Steroids and Jim Bowden won't be the end of baseball's problems.

When you consider the money at stake today, the MLB being a $6 billion business, the ego of superstars and the pride of competition on and off the field, there will always be someone, or some people, thinking, planning, scheming, or simply falling into something completely unplanned that, for a short time, brings in cash and satisfies two deadly sins.

Will the next scandal be more serious than lying under oath to Congress? Or will it include more than one Latino buscone? Does it touch further than a lowly clubhouse attendant or mascot or cousin or father? How much imagination will it take?

Also, we shouldn’t look just at baseball. The NBA had its referee scandal when Tim Donaghy had to resign (he’s in jail now) for betting on games in which he was involved. And the NHL’s “Great One,” Wayne Gretzky, had problems when his wife Janet Jones placed bets with an illegal gambling ring.

In the future, we might see a large international baseball scandal, with MLB players from Taiwan, throwing games to save their kidnapped families at home from the bookies placing bets on outcomes of games. 

We might see the death of a young rookie who injected the wrong performance-enhancing drug, a death covered up for the superstar who supplied it and corrupting an entire baseball organization. 

We might see a hybrid scandal involving a front office executive, targeted player, and the promise of riches, victories, and endless ego strokes & prideful "I told you sos" until a wife speaks, or an ex-wife confesses, or an inexperienced agent—the wrong choice to associate with, it turns out—inexplicably slips the tongue and spills enough story for some reporter, or blogger, to uncover the truth. 

Because the truth is always out there, waiting to be discovered, hidden by lies and fabrication. Scandals will always exist, even if we don't see them. And they'll be based on three related sources: Money, Ego & Pride of the participants.

What do you think?  How do you think will the next scandal play out?  Wouldn't we all like to know?

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