There has been much in the news the past few days about the ongoing allegations into contract bonus skimming, including reports of an FBI investigation into Washington Nationals GM Jim Bowden dating back to 1994. I’m actually watching an ESPN “Outside the Lines” show right now on the Dominican Republic.

That issue has already cost former White Sox Assistant GM Dave Wilder, plus numerous Latin based scouts, their jobs in baseball. It’s common backstop fodder for scouts around the industry from what I can tell.

When I worked with the Houston Astros from 1989 to 1998, one of my responsibilities was coordinating much of the organization’s Latin American scouting coverage. I made somewhere in the vicinity of 20-25 trips to Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Mexico during that period.

There were two incidents that stand out in my mind about how things worked back in the mid 1990’s that sound very familiar to what is happening today.

One instructive thing about these stories is that it shows the level of knowledge about this subject that has existed in baseball for some time. There are plenty of other rumors that I didn’t personally experience so I don’t feel are appropriate to share here, but basically baseball has always been a self policing industry on such things.

So when baseball insiders discuss bonus skimming or steroids and claim ignorance…….it’s generally hard to believe for me.

I’ll save the names/countries/teams of some of those involved because they are either not relevant or because I don’t want to get sued for violating lible laws.

Case 1

Back in the mid 90’s, the money involved in signing foreign players was a fraction of what it was today. The Astros signed approximately to 20 players from Venezuela and Panama while I worked with the team that eventually reached the big leagues and the most I can remember the team paying in terms of a signing bonus was $40,000.

So when we flew in a 16 year old right handed pitcher to the Astrodome for a workout and offered him $50,000, it was a big deal. When we couldn’t get the deal signed before the young man and his father left for home, the Astros scout responsible for bringing the player to Houston basically said, “It’s not going to get done, when he gets home and the word gets out, you will see.”

A few days later, the scout called back to see if we would up the offer to $100,000, as that would get it done. It seems as if the youngster had been offered $150,000 by one of the big spending teams and its somewhat infamous lead Latin scout. I asked the scout, who was very accomplished at signing players for less than they were offered by other teams due to the Astros limited budget, how he could sign a player for $50,000 less than he had been offered by another team. He replied “I’m merely matching the other team’s offer and have been promised that the deal will then get done for us. The extra $50,000 would go other team’s scout, so it isn’t part of the negotiation.”

I had no doubt that this was true and in retrospect that it was regularly repeated by some individual scouts.

It was pretty much out of the question for us to come up with $100K to sign that type of player, so he did end up signing with the team who offered him the $150K.

Post Script: The young man never did reach the Major Leagues.

Case 2

This is a simpler recollection, but trust that the team mentioned is known as one of the best, first class organizations in baseball.

I got a call one day shortly after getting back from a Venezuelan trip from a good friend who essentially did what I did for this other organization. He had also recently returned from Venezuela, although I don’t remember seeing him on that trip.

He said something to the effect of, “You pretty much know every thing that is going on in Venezuela and you know my scout down there. I heard rumors while I was down there that my scout was skimming money from the signing bonuses of the players he’s signing. Way off the record, what do you know about this?”

I talked to some of our people in Venezuela about it and he confirmed what I already figured was the case, that this organization’s scout was well known for this practice.

(Note that amounts were very different than we’re talking today, maybe taking 10% off bonuses that were likely to be in the $5,000 - $25,000 range).

I got back to my friend and confirmed what he already pretty much knew. His scout was very good and was contributing to the organization’s Major League roster with the players he was signing, so it wasn’t a matter of his being fired. My friend basically said, “Please keep this between us and trust that it will change quickly.”