That Infamous Cardinals Memo

Didn’t get enough about this scandalous memo sent out by Walt Jocketty?  If you recall, we first reported on a memo to Cardinals employees threatening termination if they disclosed any information two days ago. 

Here’s the rundown of the memo history, based on a few of my own sources. 

A memo containing confidential information went out to all 30 MLB teams.

One team employee sent the memo to a member of the media, who published it (that’s more or less a direct quote; if I find text of the initial MLB memo I’ll be sure to post it.  For now, this is all I know.)

MLB sent firm instruction to teams: don’t leak confidential information!

The Cardinals, plus an unknown West Coast team, sent a memo to employees reminding them not to disclose confidential information.

So, in conclusion, the Jocketty memo that we thought prefaced a huge trade or signing may have been no more than a run-of-the-mill nondisclosure reminder.

Update:  Received some additional info concerning the initial memo sent by MLB to all 30 teams.  Seems that a large portion of Peter Gammons’s November 18th column may have come from the MLB memo.  It’s an Insider column, but here’s the gist.

There’s a rundown of teams’ percentage of revenues that go into payroll, and it’s been steadily decreasing since 2002.  In other words, the teams are holding on to almost half their revenue.  Gammons says the info was given to clubs by the Commissioner’s Office and even admits the memo is confidential.  The column goes on to state that 2/3 of teams were profitable in ’05.