Sign scandal just the latest foul at Fenway
If you could pick one team in Major League Baseball to get caught engaging in a cheap, cheesy illegaluse-of-electronics caper, it would be the 2017 Red Sox, right?
Of course. We’ve been saying for more than a year now that the Red Sox clubhouse is dysfunctional, disorganized and disengaged from every other team in baseball, and this bombshell about electronic sign-stealing is just the latest example of why ownership faces a huge cleanup operation in the years to come.
Earlier this year, when I wrote that it’s becoming harder and harder to like the Red Sox, it was because they botched the Manny Machado incident in Baltimore, followed by manager John Farrell’s ill-fated decision to hand over the clubhouse to insufferable whiner David Price in the aftermath of the Dennis Eckersley incident.
And now this: An MLB investigation reveals the Red Sox deployed Apple Watches in a scheme to steal hand signals being used by opposing catchers. According to The New York Times, which broke the story, the investigation was inspired by a complaint filed by the New York Yankees, and the scheme involved members of the Sox’ training staff.
(The Red Sox followed suit yesterday, claiming the Yankees have been using center field cameras at Yankee Stadium to steal signals.)
This is a horrible, horrible look for the team that stood by and did nothing when Eckersley, a Hall of Fame pitcher now working as a NESN analyst, was verbally abused by Price during a team charter to Toronto. Even worse, various Red Sox players were cheering Price on.
While upper management spoke out in favor of Eckersley — the most candid being Red Sox chairman Tom Werner — not a single person in uniform offered an apology to Eckersley. Farrell, in addition to refusing to apologize on behalf of the team, kept repeating he has a “professional relationship” with Eckersley, a carefully-worded statement designed not to offend his sensitive players.
It stands to reason that a team so lacking in soul and decorum would then stoop to using electronics to steal signs. Red Sox president Dave Dombrowski laughed off the report yesterday, pointing out that sign-stealing has been going on for years. Be prepared for Dombrowski to next say the team is “moving on” from the allegations, which is how he broomed the Price-Eckersley dust-up.
But what Dombrowski leaves out is that the investigation isn’t about sign-stealing. As was pointed out by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who was in Boston yesterday (which, one assumes, is why the Yankees leaked the investigation to the Times), this isn’t about signstealing. It’s about using electronics in the dugout — which illegal.
These are sophisticated electronics, which, when deployed in defiance of the rules, means the games are not on the level. And if you’re any kind of baseball fan, from any city, you have a right to believe the games are being played on the level.
This is why Major League Baseball should absolutely hammer the Red Sox over this blatant rulebreaking. Manfred strongly hinted that any punishment meted out isn’t likely to include vacating victories by the Red Sox.
“Could it happen?” said Manfred. “Is there the authority to do that? I think the answer to that under the major-league constitution is yes. Has it ever happened with this type of allegation? … I know the answer is no. And the reason for that is just it’s very hard to know the actual impact in any particular game … and alleged violation of the rules.”
So don’t expect the Red Sox to get tossed out of the playoffs. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea — not as a punitive measure, but as an opportunity to keep this soul-less, mismanaged team from trudging upon baseball’s greatest stage.
It’s fascinating that the Red Sox are saying neither Dombrowski nor Farrell was involved in the scheme. Dombrowski? That makes sense. He’s not in the dugout or in the clubhouse during the game. But Farrell? Even if he wasn’t involved, it then becomes another example that he doesn’t know what’s happening on his own bench.
In exactly 50 years, the Red Sox have gone from the Impossible Dream to the Impossible Scheme.
This one isn’t a love story.