The word tampering is seldom heard in baseball these days; many people, maybe most, don’t even understand the concept. If someone suggests a team has tampered with a player or other personnel, the people allegedly involved in the illegal act quickly deny the accusation and it goes away.

Unless my memory betrays me, I don’t think that Bud Selig, in his 22 years as commissioner, has ever investigated an alleged case of tampering. A baseball official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he believes the commissioner’s office has investigated some tampering charges, but he couldn’t cite any and he said the outcomes of such investigations are generally confidential.

Selig has maintained a laissez-faire approach to the transgression. If a club lodges a complaint, he will reluctantly investigate it. Short of that, fahgedda ‘bout it. Selig’s stance is if the allegedly aggrieved team isn’t upset enough to care, why should he.

I suspect that even when a club has good reason to believe that another club has tampered with its player, it doesn’t file a complaint with the commissioner’s office because it doesn’t want other clubs scrutinizing its practices.

In 2006, for example, outfielder J.D. Drew opted out of his five-year contract with the Dodgers after two years, then signed a five-year contract with the Red Sox.

Despite denials from the Red Sox and Drew’s agent, Scott Boras, it appeared that the Red Sox had induced Drew to opt out of his Los Angeles contract. But Selig declined to investigate, saying the Dodgers had not lodged a complaint against the Red Sox.

Why had the Dodgers not pursued a tampering charge? “I have bigger fights to fight,” Frank McCourt, the Dodgers’ owner, said.

Bringing the issue up to date, the latest tampering speculation involves not a player but a manager. The Chicago Cubs hired Joe Maddon earlier this week to replace Rick Renteria as their manager. The Cubs acted swiftly after Maddon opted out of his contract with the Tampa Bay Rays.

Maddon acted swiftly after, he said, his agent informed him that his contract had a provision saying he could walk away from it if Andrew Friedman left as the Rays’ general manager. Friedman left Tampa Bay last month to become president of baseball operations with the Dodgers, and Maddon wound up in Chicago.

The timing of the two moves was such that some people, apparently including the Rays, suspected tampering. Marc Topkin reported in the Tama Bay Times that the Rays were considering a tampering charge:

“The Rays remain convinced that the Cubs enticed Maddon to opt out of the final year of his contract last week rather than reaching out afterward. As a result, they are still considering filing tampering charges or a complaint to get Major League Baseball to investigate the matter, with any potential compensation (A fine? A player?) determined by the commissioner’s office.”

The Rays declined to comment or disclose if they planned to file a complaint. In an e-mail response to my request to talk to Matt Silverman, the head of the Rays’ baseball operations, team spokesman Rick Vaughn said, “We won’t comment on the tampering issue.”

Maddon’s agent, Alan Nero, denied the idea that tampering was involved, calling it “silly,” “really sad” and “a little bit insulting.” But what else would you expect an agent or a general manager to do? If they tampered, are they going to admit it?

Theo Epstein, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations, neither admitted tampering nor denied it. That’s because he didn’t return a telephone call to discuss the development.

This incident, however, is reminiscent of another that centered on Epstein and the Cubs. Three years ago Epstein, with the OK of the Red Sox, with whom he had a year left as general manager, left Boston and became the Cubs’ president of baseball operations.

Latched onto Epstein’s coattails, Jed Hoyer left his job as San Diego’s general manager and accepted that title with the Cubs. It happened so quickly, however, that it was almost impossible without prior contact.

There were denials all around, but it was easy to suspect that the Cubs tampered with Epstein and Epstein tampered with Hoyer.

No one complained about the moves because they met the desires of the teams Epstein and Hoyer left. Epstein had experienced a sometimes contentious relationship with Larry Lucchino, the Red Sox president and chief executive. Jeff Moorad, the Padres’ chief executive officer, was willing to let Hoyer leave because he had a general manager-in-waiting in Josh Byrnes, who had been Moorad’s general manager when they were in Arizona together.

As a result, no tampering charges ensued.

Nor is it likely that a charge will emerge from the Maddon-to-the-Cubs development. If he had to, Selig would most likely discourage the Rays from filing a tampering charge. The last thing the commissioner would want as he prepares to walk out the door is an intra-mural dispute. Selig has spent 22 years building consensus among the clubs; he’s not about to let two clubs shred their cohesive unity.

It’s hard to blame Maddon for jumping to the Cubs for 5 years and $25 million, a nice raise from the $1.85 million he was scheduled to earn next season in the last year of his contract. Epstein jumped to the Cubs three years ago for 5 years and $18.5 million.

In Maddon’s case, though, he cost another manager his job. Renteria received high marks for the job he did with the Cubs this year, but he doesn’t have a job for next season. And just because he did a good job with the Cubs he’s not guaranteed a managing job the next time one becomes available.

Maddon, meanwhile, has a job for the next five years at $5 million a year, the result of the Rays’ four post-season appearances in recent years, for which he apparently gets all of the credit at the expense of the job done by Friedman as general manager.

In a conference call with reporters, Silverman said: “In the last several days we worked with Joe to try to figure out a contract extension. We engaged and made many offers and it became clear from his responses that it was not an exercise that was going to lead to an outcome.”

That comment raises a question that I believe supports the likelihood of tampering. Since Maddon wasn’t agreeing to a contract extension and was opting out of the last year of his existing Rays’ contract, where was he going to manage in 2015?

• Was he going to sit around and wait for someone to be fired next summer and take whatever job became available?
• Was he prepared to sit out all of next season and see what jobs opened up after the season?
• Or did he already know if he opted out, the Cubs’ job would be available at $5 million a year?