Veteran MLB scouts suing league over alleged age discrimination during pandemic: “We believe the commissioner and the owners colluded"

A new lawsuit is being filed against MLB as scouts believe the owners and Rob Manfred colluded to drastically reduce the age of scouts. Older scouts have evidently been left out of baseball recently, and they believe there was a blacklist in place to systematically make this a reality.

Robert Goodman, the lead attorney on the case representing the scouts, said via The Los Angeles Times:

“We believe the commissioner and the owners colluded to eliminate veteran personnel because of salaries. When Major League Baseball makes a big deal about traditions, and honoring those traditions, and then it does something like this, it’s destroying its own brand.

"If you’re trying to be America’s pastime and then suddenly people who have been involved in America’s pastime for 30 or 40 or 50 years are completely locked out, there is something wrong.”

The lawsuit alleges that MLB, under Manfred, committed a lot of discriminatory acts against scouts. They eliminated league notifications that a scout was no longer employed by one team, which prevented them from getting another job.

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MLB blacklisted scouts, lawsuit alleges

The lawsuit also alleges the use of a “blacklist” to point out older scouts who should not be hired by any team. Finally, they believe the league used the pandemic as “an opportunity to terminate an entire class of older employees.”

Did Rob Manfred collude?

Another lawyer on the case said:

"These guys largely haven’t provided any information that the scouts did anything wrong. All they did was get older. The law says you cannot banish someone just because of their age.”

Rick Ingalls organized this lawsuit. He was a scout for the Cincinnati Reds who was let go. He said:

“These guys, when they’re let go, they’re not given a year of severance, they have no health insurance, no paycheck. A lot of guys who are 55-60 when they’re fired can’t take pensions without penalties until they’re 65. They can’t get social security until they’re 62.

"They have no health insurance. A lot of these guys who we’re fighting for are losing their homes. They have kids, and the cost of [health] insurance is off the charts.”

It remains to be seen what MLB will do in response to this.