The baseball players’ union is still reshuffling its leadership group in the wake of Tony Clark’s exit as executive director.
The Major League Baseball Players Association has promoted Jeff Perconte, a 48-year-old former federal prosecutor, to general counsel. The role broadens the scope of work for Perconte, who joined the MLBPA in 2017 and was previously focused on investigation, litigation, grievances and agent regulation.
Perconte has been heavily involved with the union’s disciplinary policies, including sports betting, and has often served as lead counsel in hearings when players, major-league or minor-league, bring grievances against teams. He’s assisted in collective bargaining as well.
Now, Perconte will oversee the union’s legal department and will also work closely with other union-run entities, such as its licensing arm, Players Inc. The business affiliates are a crucial assignment: The FBI has looked into the union’s management of some of those arms in a drama that helped push out Clark last month.
Perconte has already been involved in high-profile union work. When the MLBPA punished a player agent last year for double-dealing with top management officials during sensitive labor negotiations, Perconte was a key figure in building the case.
The union’s previous general counsel was Matt Nussbaum, who was promoted to interim deputy director on Feb. 18, one day after Clark resigned. Nussbaum is in some ways co-leading the union with Bruce Meyer, named the interim executive director that same day. Meyer is focused on collective bargaining, the union’s largest task, while Nussbaum is heading up much of the day-to-day operations.
Bruce Meyer the new MLBPA head, with then-general counsel Ian Penny, left, Jeff Perconte, right and Matt Nussbaum, far right, in New York City in 2021. (AP Photo/Ron Blum)
Perconte joined the MLBPA in 2017 from the firm now known as Faegre Drinker, where he made partner. The union promoted him to deputy general counsel in 2022.
Previously, Perconte was a U.S. Attorney in Chicago from 2008-14, and also worked at the law firm Winston & Strawn from 2005-08. Nussbaum and Perconte were college baseball teammates at the University of Notre Dame.
Clark resigned last month at the players’ behest.
When federal investigators opened an investigation into the union last year, the player membership at the union hired its own counsel, which conducted an internal investigation. That led to the discovery that Clark had an inappropriate relationship with a union employee, his sister-in-law. Player leaders were informed of what happened and asked Clark to step down.