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In a courtroom in the Dominican Republic on Thursday, a panel of judges pronounced an elite career dead. A guilty verdict on a sexual abuse charge against Wander Franco all but assured that Franco will never again play Major League Baseball, and it likely invalidated Franco’s blockbuster contract with the Tampa Bay Rays, which had about $164 million worth of payments remaining.
I feel dirty even mentioning the money, but the truth is that we wouldn’t know Franco’s name were he not insanely talented at the sport of baseball. The truth is that he’s a brilliant player, an MLB All-Star by age 22, signed as the cornerstone of a winning franchise, and…well, that’s all, now. His All-Star appearance came in the 2023 season, his third in the majors. It’ll likely be his last.
The case itself is sordid, and I say that as a person who has known some unsavory stuff about a few athletes through the decades. Some of those things became public scandals; some never will. This one wound up in court.
Franco was more than credibly accused of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl in the Dominican when he was 21. It’s actually worse than that: The girl’s mother was paid by Franco to facilitate the relationship (he claimed extortion), then laundered the money, the judges determined. The mother was sentenced to 10 years on sex trafficking charges. Franco’s sentence was two years, suspended.
It’s all awful. There is nothing redeeming about what I’m writing. Lives have been wrecked, and those lives touch other lives and whole families. Wander Franco is 24 years old. He is not the victim. He’s just the person whose name we know.
Because we’re sports fans, we will most likely compartmentalize this particular story, or else ignore it wholesale, and focus on whichever players are playing. That’s also the business model for the industry, by the way. When the Franco story broke in the summer of ‘23, he was quietly placed on paid administrative leave, meaning he continued to collect millions. When formal charges were filed last July, he went on the unpaid restricted list, where he’ll probably remain.
The process through which Franco might ever return to MLB is opaque, but let’s guess no on that. His sentence does not impose travel restrictions, but immigration experts told The Athletic several months ago that conviction on a sexual offense would likely result in a permanent ban from the United States, and this conviction is bottom-of-the-barrel moral turpitude, the kind that often triggers such a ban. That matters because, technically, Franco was placed on MLB’s restricted list for failure to report to the team, not because he was charged with a crime.
More to the point, perhaps, Major League Baseball is conducting its own investigation. It’ll eventually hand down its discipline, which could easily be permanent ineligibility. (Whatever that means; see the Pete Rose case.)
Franco is a marvelous talent and, evidently, a lost person. Baseball has long hewed to a practice of signing players from Puerto Rico, the Dominican, Venezuela and elsewhere when they are incredibly young — early teens, basically — meaning that the teams involved don’t really know what they’re getting, other than some promising athletic ability or a big hit tool or whatever. They know nothing about what these kids might grow to become, for better and, as we’ve just seen, for worse.
When the verdict was read on Thursday, those in the courtroom said that Wander Franco dropped his head. He was later seen wiping away tears. If he understood little else in his very young life of privilege, he did seem to know that a suspended sentence matters little if it is attached to a guilty verdict on the sexual abuse of a minor.
As I said, he’s not a victim. But this is certainly a fine career that he placed in ruins. I will write about much sunnier topics than this one. Honestly? Can’t wait.
A tragically sad story, indeed…on multiple levels.
In the end, though, seriously wrong choices have seriously severe consequences….and even at that, the conviction won’t “un-ring that bell,” for the victim(s).
So sad. A nicely written piece dealing with a very difficult topic.