A youth baseball program owned and operated by the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) is under federal investigation for how it allocated resources, according to an ESPN report released Thursday. The criminal probe comes as the sport’s highest-profile event of the year, the 2025 World Series, beams from televisions around the world.
An anonymous whistleblower accuses MLBPA executive director Tony Clark of “self-dealing, misuse of resources, abuse of power and nepotism.” The criminal investigation run by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, New York, centers around Players Way, a youth program created by Clark in 2019.
The Florida-based program spent at least $3.9 million over the past six years, and a source told ESPN that figure could be as high as $10 million. In that time, the program hosted just a handful of live events while barely clearing “six figures” in revenue, the report stated.
Players Way funds “largely paid the six-figure annual salaries of its executives and consultants,” which includes “a handful of former major leaguers, some of whom were simultaneously working other full-time jobs outside the union,” sources said. The union would not say where the $3.9 million was spent.
Clark, who has not been charged with a crime, denied the allegations in a statement to ESPN.
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