From Fox9 (Minneapolis)
(Gardy will turn the phone over to his rule breaking outfielder just as soon as he’s done chatting with Kathy McGinty)
Twins outfielder Torii Hunter’s gift of champagne to the Kansas City Royals has him in trouble with Major League Baseball.
Hunter’s brought four bottles of Dom Perignon champagne to the Royals clubhouse before last weekend™s series. The champagne was meant to be a gift for the Royals sweeping the Detroit Tigers last September, securing an AL Central title for the Twins.
Rule 21 b of the MLB constitution does not allow such gifts. The rule says œany player or person connected with a Club who shall offer or give any gift or reward to a player or person connected with another Club for services rendered … in defeating or attempting to defeat a competing Club … shall be declared ineligible for not less than three years.”
The Twins got a phone call from the commissioner’s office about the gift, forcing the Twins to call the Royals to get the champagne returned.
Hunter said he wasn™t aware of the rule.
“I do good things,” he said. “If you want to make a good thing into a bad thing, then so be it.”
I agree with the need to have a rule governing gift giving or any related issue which may give the appearance of affecting the integrity of the game.
However, Rule 21 b of the MLB constitution, as is currently stated needs to be changed. For sake of discussion let me give one example. Does this rule apply during the off-season at holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc., and a player may wish to give a gift (e.g., holiday wine basket for the family) to a player or person, who is also a close friend but is connected with another Club, which just happened to defeat a competing Club, enabling the givers Club to advance. We’re talking 3 years, a “verdict” akin to a first degree felony? By comparison with all the other infractions and allegations of wrong doing in todays society, giving a bottle of wine should result in no more than a letter in your personnel file and a fine. Rule 21 b, in its present form, may have been appropriate at the time in which it was implemented and I believe could still be appropriate today, providing sensible changes are made that fit the punishment to the crime.