MLB — The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
With spring training in full swing, we look ahead to the 2020 season, including a couple thoughts on the Braves
MBaron@CalhounTimes.com
Opening Day of the 2020 Major League Baseball season is almost here! Temperatures are (finally) starting to warm on a consistent basis. Spring Training is in full swing (pun fully intended) in Florida and Arizona. Today, as the players prep for the grind to October, we look at some beef I have with a certain MLB team (you might know the team already), some certain proposed rule changes and something I’ve liked in spring training thus far.
Welcome to March, my birthday month and the “Mad”ness up in here.
Corny puns aside, let’s start with the ugly first, and that is the Houston Astros. For a time now, the Astros’ cheating scandal dominated headline as MLB prepared for teams to report to their respective spring training facilities. To give a little bit of background to those who do not follow baseball, late last year, media reports surfaced about the Astros electronically stealing signs and relaying upcoming pitches to batters through methods such as trashcan banging during 2017 and 2018. You may recall the Astros won the 2017 World Series in seven games over the Los Angeles Dodgers. MLB launched an investigation. The punishment from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred? A $5 million fine and two years’ worth of first and second-round draft picks surrendered. Some were clamoring for the aforementioned title to be vindicated, but Manfred swiftly shot down any prospects of that. Some people think Manfred did enough; others not enough.
There’s been a good amount uncovered and still a lot we don’t know yet and may not know the full extent of for some time. We’re not going into the wrongdoings themselves, but rather the aftermath. On the first day of spring training, the Astros organization convened at their spring training facility in West Palm Beach and, led by owner Jim Crane, issued an apology for what happened. Or, depending on your opinion, lack thereof. In short, it was a debacle, further alienating the crowd of “well, maybe they feel remorseful about what happened and will show it.” It seemed more like a let’s not talk about this and move on-type deal. There’s plenty of clips online of last month’s press conference and you can judge for yourself whether or not the apology was meant, but here’s where things went awry. Crane speaks and says “Our opinion is that this didn’t impact the game.” Moments later, when questioned by a reporter, Crane responds “I didn’t say it didn’t impact the game.” Umm ... you kind of did. Quite literally shortly before that question. Then, Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve, two of the Astros’ mainstays in the starting lineup, speak for a grand total of about 90 seconds. Again, you can judge for yourself, but it felt, scripted, as if they were not actually sorry for their actions. And that’s where the problem really sets in. This is the biggest scandal to rock the baseball world since the steroid era, maybe the largest blemish since the 1919 Black Sox scandal, and you stand up in front of the world and deliver that?