Last year, a prominent agent received a phone call from a 770 number. On the other end was John Coppolella, the general manager of the Atlanta Braves. He wanted to talk about one of the agent’s clients. The agent found this particularly curious, not because the Braves liked the player but because he was playing for a different organization and it was August, a full 2½ months before he would hit free agency. Never before had he seen a general manager so blatantly disregard tampering rules.
Over the course of Coppolella’s career – one that may have ended Monday as he resigned amid a Major League Baseball investigation into violations with international and domestic amateurs as well as tampering accusations, sources told Yahoo Sports – his disregard for rules fueled his ascent and hastened his downfall.