In a day and age where sports gambling is at its peak, there remains a strict set of rules that professional athletes must abide by when it comes to playing the game and keeping their finances away from the sport in which they play.

This has been a policy within baseball for years, stemming back to the infamous Black Sox scandal, Pete Rose and his involvement with gambling on baseball (which has kept him out of the Hall of Fame), and most recently, Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano was hit with the ban hammer last year for gambling on baseball while on the IL.

The most recent recipient of the ban is umpire Pat Hoberg, who was fired yesterday for his alleged involvement in gambling on baseball.

As per ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, Hoberg reportedly shared an account with a friend who bet on baseball and the former umpire also intentionally deleted messages and a Telegram account that were deemed important in MLB’s investigation on the matter.

Hoberg did not umpire last year and was suspended due to the violation and later fired in May of 2024, and during the subsequent appeal of his termination. In June of 2024, it was reported that Hoberg was appealing a violation of the gambling policy but it was not known last summer what the umpire had done to warrant the penalty in the first place due to the investigation being ongoing. The recent firing and news statement by Commissioner Robert Manfred yesterday confirmed the matters surrounding his dismissal.

According to Major League Baseball, through a report by a neutral party into the investigation, Hoberg’s friend, a professional poker player, made 141 bets on baseball between early 2021 and through the 2023 season, totalling $214,000 as reported by the sportsbook, which notified MLB of the violation in early 2024.

MLB also noted that the factfinder found that eight of the 141 bets placed were games that Hoberg was a part of in some capacity, with the highest bet(s) being a combined $5000 wager during the 2021 NLDS between the Dodgers and the Giants (Hoberg was the third base umpire that night), with the bettor winning the money line and run line, netting $9300 total.

Hoberg himself bet on the account on other sports, which was sometimes done through his friend when he wasn’t in Iowa, where it is legal to bet on sports, but did not bet on baseball and admitted to the investigators he did not know his friend was betting on baseball on the account.

Hoberg said in a statement of his own, “I take full responsibility for the errors in judgment that are outlined in today’s statement… Those errors will always be a source of shame and embarrassment to me. Major League Baseball umpires are held to a high standard of personal conduct, and my own conduct fell short of that standard… I have never and would never bet on baseball in any way, shape, or form. I have never provided, and would never provide, information to anyone for the purpose of betting on baseball. Upholding the integrity of the game has always been of the utmost importance to me. I apologize to Major League Baseball and the entire baseball community for my mistakes. I vow to learn from them and to be a better version of myself moving forward.”

Making his big league umpiring debut in 2014, Hoberg became a full-time MLB umpire in 2017 and boasted a 95.5% accuracy rating per Umpire Scorecards for the 2023 season. Hoberg had umpired in numerous events, including the Wild Card (2018, 2020), Division Series (2019, 2021, 2022), League Championship Series (2020), and the 2022 World Series, where he earned a ‘perfect game’ by calling 129 pitches taken correctly. Hoberg also umpired during the 2023 World Baseball Classic. He is widely regarded as one of the top strike callers of the past few years.

He will be eligible for reinstatement in 2026.