When Cleveland Guardians pitcher Luis Ortiz spiked a slider in the dirt to begin the third inning of his most recent outing, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Last week, Major League Baseball put the 26-year-old right-hander from the Dominican Republic on nondisciplinary paid leave while it investigates the matter.
If Ortiz is found to have been involved with betting on his own performance, he would likely be banned from the sport for life. (A representative for Ortiz didn’t respond to requests for comment.)
American sports has been riddled with betting scandals over the past couple of years, with separate incidents involving former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter, MLB umpire Pat Hoberg, and Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara. The situation involving Ortiz, however, could turn out to be the most explosive of all.
Do you believe spot-fixing has already made an entrance into American sports or it has always been there?
In case anyone doesn't know what spot-fixing is, there's a great description provided by wsj here:
“Spot-fixing” is the practice of manipulating small, discrete events that have little to no bearing on the outcome of a game—the timing of a yellow card in soccer, a wide ball in cricket, a single double-fault in tennis. Or, in the case of Ortiz, the result of one of the roughly 300 pitches thrown in the average baseball game.
Yes, in Cricket spot-fixing is very common, especially in the 2nd tier or league games. There are many occurrences of Cricket players being suspended for years or thrown into a life-ban for doing the shameful deed.
I believe spot-fixing or fixing of any type is a mockery of sports and should be taken care of with the strictest measures.