Feds investigating Jim Bowden

by Adam J. Morris on Feb 23, 2009 10:47 AM CST

Nats g.m. Jim Bowden continues to have problems:

A federal investigation into the skimming of signing bonuses given to baseball prospects from Latin America is looking at Washington Nationals general manager Jim Bowden as far back as 1994, when he was GM of the Cincinnati Reds, according to a baseball executive familiar with the investigation.

Two sources inside baseball say that a long-time scout in Latin America, Jorge Oquendo, 47, is the man who links the FBI's investigations of Bowden and his special assistant Jose Rijo to that of former Chicago White Sox senior director of player personnel David Wilder. Last May the White Sox fired Wilder and two Dominican-based scouts after allegations surfaced that they had pocketed money earmarked for player signing bonuses. Oquendo worked for Wilder in 2006 and 2007, as well as for Bowden with the Reds in 1994 and again with the Reds from 2000 through 2003. Oquendo left Cincinnati in 2005, two years after Bowden was fired. (Bowden became Nationals GM in 2004.)

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These actions befuddle me.

Why are the Feds so up in MLB’s biz lately? Aren’t there more important things/crimes they could be doing/investigating?

"...my balls are really like a veiny flesh color" blueballlefty on Jun 4, 2008 7:44 PM EDT
"you gonna lose your horse. seriously." FX2
Yes we can! November 04, 2008

by Rodney on Feb 23, 2009 11:08 AM CST reply actions

I'd be real tempted to say

take this antitrust and shove it. Yeah, it might cost the owners their minor league systems, but from a pure business standpoint, I am unconvinced it would be bad for baseball to lose antitrust.

Get off my lawn.

by DJCahill on Feb 23, 2009 11:09 AM CST up reply actions

Antitrust

I don’t think eliminating the antitrust exemption would have any impact on this particular investigation.

The Feds would be able to investigate potential fraud/theft regardless of whether baseball had the exemption, as they frequently do in suspected corporate kick-back cases.

by Darrell McKown on Feb 23, 2009 12:29 PM CST up reply actions

Honestly

I don’t see it being much different in hiring a broker to buy stocks. The whole economy is built on middlemen skimming a cut.

Get off my lawn.

by DJCahill on Feb 23, 2009 1:13 PM CST up reply actions

This isn't the middle man skimming a cut.

This is the guy handing out the cash, and then being a recipient of a portion of it. Even if the owner knew and approved it, its sketchy from an accounting and tax perspective.

I’m sure Bowden didn’t list his ‘skimmed bonuses’ income line item on his taxes every year.

by mattrpav on Feb 23, 2009 2:25 PM CST up reply actions

Actually....

It seems much more like the city government paying the contractor $100,000, then the contractor giving the guy from the city manager’s office who hired him a $10,000 kick-back.

by Darrell McKown on Feb 23, 2009 3:19 PM CST up reply actions

Just cause it's not important to you

doesn’t mean it is not important.

by Mike E on Feb 23, 2009 12:39 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs

I actually care much more

about MLB cleaning up this problem than steroids.

G G G E-flat_______ F F F D__________....

by t ball on Feb 23, 2009 12:48 PM CST up reply actions

true dat

"A good start would be not giving up 900 runs again." -Jon Daniels

by Randy Richardson on Feb 23, 2009 1:59 PM CST up reply actions

This is stealing

and even worse it is wealthy adults stealing from poor kids. Also it’s not as if this is congress. This is federal investigators investigating a real crime.

by bushe on Feb 23, 2009 12:48 PM CST up reply actions

This.

The 40 Trumps All!!!

I hate Michael Young.

"I don’t have any respect for anybody on here. Everyone on here is a fucking asshole who thinks they’re god compared to everyone else." -iorange555, throwing one of his patented sandy-vagina'd hissy fits.

by thedirkatron on Feb 24, 2009 12:51 AM CST up reply actions

I'm ready for some box scores!

Enough off field BS.

by Evil Monkey on Feb 23, 2009 11:32 AM CST reply actions

I don't get it

It almost seems like their trying to connect Bowden to the skimming. It seems counterintuitive that a GM would want his scouts to be skimming off the top of signing bonuses.

by WyoRanger on Feb 23, 2009 11:34 AM CST reply actions

Bowden

His problem is that two of the central figures- Rijo and Oquendo- have worked with him in both Cincinnati and Washington.

Bowden may not be guilty of any wrongdoing, but at the very least, he appears to have extremely poor judgement in the people he’s surrounded himself with.

"I dont care to debate with a troll." - Sharky

by RCCook on Feb 23, 2009 11:54 AM CST up reply actions

Funny

I guess it’ll be easy for Bowden’s defenders to argue that he’s a poor judgment of people who he works with off-the-field, since he’s well documented as a poor judge of people who he hires to work for him on-the-field.

by JBImaknee on Feb 23, 2009 11:57 AM CST up reply actions

Well, unless they were funneling some of the money back to him.

Segways aren’t free, ya know.

The 40 Trumps All!!!

I hate Michael Young.

by thedirkatron on Feb 24, 2009 12:53 AM CST up reply actions

This is important

It a hell of a lot more scandalous than a bunch of hypercompetitive athletes trying to cut corners and get stronger at the gym.

This is embezzlement and fraud. It’s all kinds of huge felonies. I wonder if they’re trying to figure out if Bowden himself was getting kickbacks from the scouts and agents. The whole buscone system is really shady and has been so for a long, long time.

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain

by JM Barten on Feb 23, 2009 12:50 PM CST reply actions