Atlanta Braves are part of an FBI investigation, Grand Jury inquiry

But What is this About Really?

Enough of the history lessons… why is there an FBI investigation?  Why is a Grand Jury involved?

You may recall in prior stories on this topic this notion of ‘everybody’s doing it – the Braves just got caught.’  I’ll have some more to say about that particular thought later, but let look at the obvious parts first:

While that may or may not be completely accurate, what the Braves got caught doing was in going above and beyond the point of other teams’ efforts – and perhaps in doing so, they caught the attention of law enforcement as well.

It’s a poor analogy, but you might think of it as a group of 30 cars on a multi-lane highway.  The speed limit is 70, but everybody is more-or-less behaving themselves at 75 mph.  But sooner or later, you know somebody is going to get out of the line.

The Braves apparently got caught doing about 90 (while driving solo in the HOV lane).  So now the other 29 cars are getting looked at, too.

Why is the Federal Government involved?  Passan rattled off a list of likely infractions, including:

• Drug abuse
• Human smuggling… and perhaps human trafficking
• violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)

I’m going to have to take a slight detour here, as the FCPA is something that needs to be explained a bit more fully.