Jeff Perconte is promoted to general counsel of MLB players' union

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NEW YORK (AP) — Jeff Perconte was promoted to general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association on Wednesday in another move following the forced resignation of union head Tony Clark.

Perconte, 48, is the No. 3 person on the union's legal team behind interim executive director Bruce Meyer and interim deputy executive director Matt Nussbaum, who had been general counsel.

The union's leadership is preparing for the start of collective bargaining to replace the five-year labor contract that expires Dec. 1. Management is expected to propose a salary cap, which the union has vowed to fight, and a lockout appears likely to start on Dec. 2.

A former captain of Notre Dame's baseball team, Perconte was a lawyer at Winston & Strawn from 2005-08, an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago from 2008-14 and a lawyer at Faegre Drinker before he was hired by the union in 2017 as assistant general counsel.

He was promoted to deputy general counsel in 2022 at the same time Meyer was elevated to deputy executive director.

Perconte becomes the seventh general counsel in the union’s history after Dick Moss (1966-77), Donald Fehr (1977-2004), Michael Weiner (2004-13), David Prouty (2013-17), Ian Penny (2017-22) and Nussbaum (2022-26).

Clark, a former All-Star first baseman, led the union from 2013 until he quit on Feb. 17 after an investigation by the union’s outside counsel discovered evidence that Clark had an inappropriate relationship with his sister-in-law, a union employee since 2023.

Meyer and Nussbaum were promoted by the union's executive board the following day.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb