WHEN A YOUNG STAR STAYS ALL NIGHT IN A CASINO, BASEBALL HAS SERIOUS WOES

CJ Abrams didn’t care it was 8 a.m. with a day game at Wrigley Field, and if he inspects his life, he’ll see the logo behind his manager — BetMGM — is the same one on his table thanks to Rob Manfred

     My stomach was gnarled to see CJ Abrams, an All-Star shortstop at 23, leaning on a Chicago casino table at 8 a.m. He was out past dawn and, based on his nightcat eyes in web photos, he didn’t care about an approaching day game at Wrigley Field. Know what I noticed on the red felt in front of him?

     An MGM logo, with a lion.

     Which is odd because he reportedly was at Bally’s in downtown Chicago when, in truth, there isn’t an MGM casino in Illinois or anywhere closer than Detroit. Wherever Abrams stared at his chips, the Washington Nationals were stunned he was gambling into breakfast time Friday. And if he happened to be at an MGM establishment or at Bally’s or Rivers Casino, all of which use different logos, let’s ask a question of a harried commissioner named Rob Manfred.

     Would he like to acknowledge the sportsbooks with which he has engaged in $1.1 billion of legal revenue? Well, one actually is MGM, as Major League Baseball’s first official gaming partner. Imagine, too, that BetMGM was in a series of logos behind Nationals manager Dave Martinez on a somber Saturday in sports, when he discussed how Abrams was banished to the minor leagues. MGM is Manfred’s betting toy — and it’s gazing at us on a podium behind Abrams’ boss.

     “I’m hoping that he understands and becomes a better person and understands what his job means here for us, the Nats family,” Martinez said. “We're going to get it right, and he's going to help us win games.”

     This industry is self-defeatist. So are similar industries that make as much money as possible from casinos and don’t care about the absence of integrity, including how it wobbles in Abrams’ mind. A month doesn’t pass without another miserable story, whether it involves baseball and NFL scandals, or Jontay Porter discharged from the NBA for life, or an interpreter stealing almost $17 million from Shohei Ohtani — the greatest player in sports — and impersonating him at the bank about 24 times, which remains shocking as he made 19,000 wagers in 26 months.

     All it took, after seeing gambling ads in his daily sights and watching ESPN with its betting spotlight, was Abrams to spend too much off-time in a parlor. He could have been bombed on alcohol at 8 a.m. and not served baseball with more unscrupulous behavior. A young star was gambling, and while players can hang inside a casino, it suggests he didn’t know when to stop. What’s next for Abrams, a baseball wager?

     As sports demands bets, players bet. Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo was livid and no longer cared about his player’s credentials, which included a pitiful .203 batting average and .326 slugging percentage in the second half while he leads the team with home runs. The team will have long discussions with him about gambling and the games, which might be more critical than booze and drugs because of potential wrongdoing with odds. If Abrams gambles past sunrise, does he know bookies? Such questions must be asked after he was optioned to Class AAA Rochester.

     “We’ve had our moments. We sat and we (wept) together,” Martinez said. “But as I always say, for me it’s about taking care of the person first, not the player. I’m going to do everything I can to help him. I love the kid. He’s a good kid. He’s going to be back.”

     His teammates also will care for him. Abrams has a problem. “CJ is family. It’s a tough situation for me,” said MacKenzie Gore, the winning pitcher in a 5-1 victory. “I’m always going to be there for CJ in this situation. It was a tough day for me hearing that. You care about him, so it was tough. We’re close. And you lose your best player.”

     Said catcher Keibert Ruiz: “I can talk to him in private and we can talk to each other and see what he’s got and how I can help him and go from there.”

     Supposedly, Abrams was spotted at Bally’s by a podcaster — @CODY_CHGO — who posted the picture on a site. When he was credited, Cody Delmendo wrote, “Tweeting this so I can pin it and it can one day go on my tombstone” before suggesting ESPN’s Jeff Passan “step aside” because “I’m taking your job, brother.” By nightfall, the photo was gone but was posted across the web. Delmendo did originate the casino story, and his presence should remind players that anyone with a phone can report off-the-field screwups. A Chicago Tribune columnist somehow wrote this today: “I’m not sure how many players I saw in bars late at night before day games over the last 30 years as a baseball writer, but I never felt the urge to rat him out. It’s a different era of sports reporting, for sure.”

     Abrams was gambling. He could not go to bed with money on the table. Rat him out? Delmendo did his job, I guess.

     Baseball deserves terminal woes. When FanDuel announced a partnership, MLB executive Kenny Gersh was thrilled. Did he think about a vulnerable player such as Abrams or Tucupita Marcano, who made wagers on games involving the Pittsburgh Pirates and was permanently banned? “As one of the top sportsbooks in America, FanDuel has been an industry leader in innovative fan engagement opportunities while also reminding them of the importance of doing it responsibly,” Gersh said. “These key priorities of unique fan engagement and responsible gambling align with our focus from the league level and make FanDuel a natural partner to collaborate.”

     A natural partner? Did anyone listen to bookmaker Mathew Bowyer, involved with Ippei Mizuhara, when he threatened to interrupt Ohtani for cold information about his interpreter’s wagers? “Hey Ippie, it’s 2 o’clock on Friday. I don’t know why you’re not returning my calls. I’m in Newport Beach and I see (Ohtani) walking his dog,” Bowyer wrote to Mizuhara last Nov. 17. “I’m just gonna go up and talk to him and ask how I can get in touch with you since you’re not responding. Please call me back immediately.”

     Such an interaction could be viewed as a serious threat. Manfred is aware of safety issues yet not enough to ban sportsbooks from his finances. “If a player receives a threat from any source, on any topic, it is a matter of concern to us that we take really seriously,” he said. “I’ve had players in the last month mention this issue to me as one of concern and we're discussing what we should do to be more proactive in this area.”

     Will Manfred speak to us about Abrams? Probably not. Speaking in general terms, he said, “Working your whole life to get to the major leagues in whatever role and lose that over sports betting, that's a huge penalty. I truly believe we're in a better position to know what's going on today than we were in the old days when it was all illegal.”

     Still, the commissioner didn’t know anything about a rising star wandering into a casino and staying until breakfast. On Thursday night, Abrams went 4-for-5 with two doubles and two stolen bases. Then he bombshelled. Friday afternoon, he went 0-for-3 with a strikeout and a walk.

     The MGM logo never leaves.

     Same lion.

     ###

     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.