Mets clubhouse manager Charlie Samuels is under investigation by the NYPD and the Queens District Attorney’s office for allegedly betting on baseball and other sports as part of an organized gambling ring, providing inside information and tips for friends who also placed bets on games and for using his Mets accounts to cover gambling debts, according to law-enforcement sources close to the probe into the longtime Mets employee….

Samuels, who has not been arrested, is believed to have told Major League Baseball that he bet on baseball games, a strict violation of baseball rules. Samuels, the Mets’ clubhouse manager for 27 seasons, was described by a source as a “spider who sat in the middle of a money web,” a man who earned about $80,000 a year from the Mets but whose tax returns showed about $600,000 to $700,000 in income. He has homes in Huntington, L.I., and Port St. Lucie.

– New York Daily News.

If you’re looking for a way to get canned from your job in Major League Baseball right quick, bet on some baseball games. The league and its teams take gambling very, very seriously, and for good reason: Any threat of a fixed outcome would severely jeopardize the integrity of the sport, which is predicated on the notion that both teams are always trying to win. I’ve written before that gambling in sports is potentially worse than steroids, since for all the bluster about performance-enhancing drugs, they’re used in the effort to better the player and help the team win.

No one has suggested that Samuels tried to fix any games or anything like that, but it’s impossible to fault the Mets for not taking chances (and I don’t think anyone has). No one with that much access to the players should ever be so caught up in high-stakes gambling, and Major League Baseball is vigilant about it. This is why I have no sympathy for Pete Rose: It is made abundantly clear to all players, coaches and managers that you do not bet on baseball games.

Gambling problems are a sad and terrifying thing, and if Samuels is addicted, I hope he finds help. But he probably should not be allowed back into a Major League clubhouse anytime soon.

One note, though — the Daily News story makes it sound vaguely like Samuels is raking in $520,000 to $620,000 a year through gambling, and that’s almost certainly not the case. Clubhouse personnel earn the large part of their wages through tips at the end of each season, and a figure as popular and important to the team as Samuels probably gets a ton of them.