MLB Fires Well Respected Umpire Pat Hoberg After Investigation Shows He Shared a Legal Gambling Account With His Friend Who Was Betting On Baseball, Including Some Of His Umpired Games

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We've been hit with a wave of major sports storylines in the recent days. We've got the Super Bowl this weekend, Myles Garrett requested a trade from the Browns, and of course Luka Doncic's shocking trade shook up the whole NBA. Now it's MLB's turn, but of course it's not a crazy trade or signing. Pat Hoberg, maybe the game's most respected umpire, has been fired for sharing a legal betting account with his friend who was betting on baseball. 

(ESPN) Following a lengthy appeals process, Major League Baseball on Monday has fired umpire Pat Hoberg for "sharing" legal sports betting accounts with a friend who bet on baseball and for intentionally deleting messages key to the investigation into his conduct.

MLB said Hoberg "adamantly denied betting on baseball directly or indirectly," with commissioner Rob Manfred saying there was "no evidence" that Hoberg directly bet on games or manipulated the outcomes of any games "in any way."

In its statement, MLB said it fired Hoberg for failing to "uphold the integrity of the game" and that he "should have known" that his friend -- a professional poker player -- had bet on baseball from the shared account.

Yeah not great at all. In case you're unaware, Hoberg is about as nails as it gets when it comes to calling balls and strikes. He umped a perfect game in the World Series a few years ago which really ascended him to becoming a household name in the sport. He showed that not all umps were like Angel Hernandez and that there was some hope to avoid robo umps if everyone could be like him. 

The report states that Hoberg shared an account with a poker player friend who lived in Iowa. They communicated through the Telegram app to talk about their bets, but reportedly none of Hoberg's bets were on baseball. His buddy, however, did bet on baseball including five games that Hoberg umped or had replay review responsibility for. Conveniently enough the friend deleted the messages after being contacted by MLB. Definitely not suspicious at all.

After being contacted by MLB investigators, the friend deleted both of his Telegram threads with Hoberg. Hoberg also deleted his Telegram account. Hoberg asserted throughout the entire investigation and appeal process that he had no idea at the time that he was being investigated for betting on baseball because he had no knowledge of his friend's baseball bets. Hoberg said he deleted the messages simply because he was embarrassed by the frequency and volume of his legal non-baseball betting activity. Hoberg's actions regarding the deletion of messages made those messages irretrievable, as later efforts by MLB and Hoberg to recover those messages failed.

• Of the 141 baseball bets placed from his friend's accounts, eight bets involved five games that Hoberg umpired or had responsibility for replay reviews. There was no evidence that Hoberg took any action to manipulate the outcome of the games. A detailed analysis did not reveal any pattern to indicate that Hoberg's calls were influenced by the bets being made by his friend.

• The investigation found that although the baseball bets were profitable, the data did not support a finding that bets from his friend's accounts were connected to game-fixing or other efforts to manipulate any part of any baseball game or event. The baseball betting activity also did not focus on any particular club, pitcher or umpire, and there was no apparent correlation between bet success and bet size. The eight bets on games that Hoberg worked similarly did not reveal any obvious pattern.

Ah the friend also profited on the baseball bets, what a coincidence! Surely baseball is telling us all we need to know and not all there is to know. Definitely sketchy as fuck that the messages got erased and MLB couldn't recover them. Can't you recover anything these days? How are we to believe Hoberg didn't bet on any of the games or told his buddy important inside info? We're just trusting that whatever investigation they launched found no wonky trends in his umpiring? Seems awfully hopeful more than concrete. 

For now we're left to just believe what they relay to us and hope the investigation was legitimate, but umpires/refs getting involved in these types of scandals just gives you a bad feeling in your stomach. How does your mind not go directly to Tim Donagy 2.0? If a guy like Hoberg is that good at calling balls and strikes, in theory he could be equally good at swinging a game on pitches that were in the grey area. 

The worst part of this is we just lost the best umpire in baseball. If only this could have been CB Bucknor or Laz Diaz. Would that have set off way bigger panic alarms across the sport? Well yeah, but at least we wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. Dammit.