When Rich started writing for Brushbackpitch.com last month he asked that people get their ranting and raving about the steroid scandal done with because he was tiring of reading about them every day.

He may have gotten his wish.

Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and the respective allegations against them have at least temporarily taken a hiatus from the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. They’ve been replaced by the resignation of Jim Bowden as he’s investigated for any role he may have played in the skimming of Latin American players’ signing bonuses.

Bowden reportedly denies any wrongdoing and he claims his resignation is due to the distraction caused by media scrutiny of the investigation.

Fair enough.

But this can’t be the type of headline Major League Baseball officials had hoped would replace steroid talk at this time of year.

According to the Sporting News, Bowden met last year with FBI investigators looking into an alleged scam involving skimming signing bonuses from prospects form the Dominican Republic. Last year the Chicago White Sox actually fired David Wilder, then the team’s director of player personnel, and two other scouts in the team’s Latin American operation after a two-month investigation by Major League Baseball’s Department of Investitations, the Sporting News continues. The New York Yankees also fired two scouts.

This has become an issue, according to a fascinating story in New York’s Newsday today, because in the Dominican Republic, baseball is seen as a way out of poverty. “Busconis,” the story explains, are unofficial scouts or agents who finds players before they are old enough to sign with a Major League Baseball team, then works out an agreement with the player’s family to prepare him to sign in return for a portion of the signing bonus.

He gets the teenager tryouts, perhaps buys him food and equipment. But, according to Newsday, the players often don’t know how much they should be receiving – and the agents are taking as much as 50 percent or more of the bonus.

One major league scout told Newsday “there are only about two or three I know that are clean and there are a thousand there.”

“There are a lot of them that are slimy and under the table,” the person continues.

So, there. It looks like Commissioner Bud Selig might have a couple days of relief from dealing with the offshoots of the steroids scandal. Something tells me, however, that this isn’t what he had in mind.