MLB To Question Franco About Mob Cronies



Yesterday's news that Mets reliever John Franco has been named as an associate of mafia figures should in no way impact the pitcher's future employment. Franco, said to be a possible future manager of the NY-Penn League's Brooklyn Cyclones, couldn't possibly come into contact with organized crime on Coney Island. And whom better to mentor the Mets' young arms of the future, to serve as a godfather of sorts to the clubs' pitching prospects, than Johnny B. Bad?

The New York Times' Lee Jenkins has more on this troubling tale.

Major League Baseball is expected to interview Mets pitcher John Franco in light of news reports that a member of the Bonanno crime family told the F.B.I. that Franco had given him and other crime family members free tickets to a Mets game in the early 1990's.

Baseball officials will probably speak with Franco and remind him of the negative appearance cast when a player associates with members of organized crime, a baseball executive with knowledge of the situation said yesterday. But the executive also said that he did not think Major League Baseball would conduct a formal investigation of Franco and that he did not expect Franco would be punished unless federal prosecutors were to accuse him of a crime.

Nothing in Federal Bureau of Investigation records suggests that Franco is under investigation. Frank Lino, a Bonanno family member who helped federal prosecutors convict top members of the group, said in an interview with the F.B.I. last year that Franco had arranged tickets for Bonanno figures who took a trip to Montreal in 1993 to meet with Canadian associates, according to records of the F.B.I. interview. The Mets do not check the background of everyone on players' guest lists.

The past few days, the Mets have had contact with Franco and Major League Baseball to discuss the episode. Officials from the Mets and Major League Baseball declined to comment yesterday. Franco released a statement Thursday through his agent, Dan Horwits, which included, "I am proud to be an Italian-American and have lived my life in a respectable fashion."

Franco's image as a club icon could be affected by Lino's interview with the F.B.I. According to records of the interview, Lino said that he and other Bonanno family members had gone to Montreal in 1993 to tell the Canadian Bonannos that Joseph Massino was to become the family's new boss. In May of this year, Lino testified at a federal trial in Brooklyn that Massino used an object to hit Alphonse Indelicato, a Bonanno captain known as Sonny Red, in 1981. Soon after, Indelicato and two other Bonanno captains were shot dead, helping Massino rise to the top of the crime family.

Posted: Sat - October 30, 2004 at 01:42 AM      

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