A sorry situation
Sign-stealing Astros to be branded around the league as villains for life
GLENDALE, Ariz. — It was a sordid affair that shocked the baseball world, a story of “deceit, dissembling and conspiracy,” according to one players union official.
The integrity of the game was at stake, and an investigation was launched to get to the bottom of things.
When all was said and done, the coconspirators were deemed guilty, severe penalties were dished out and the game moved on.
But unlike the Astros sign-stealing scandal, no public apologies were issued back in 1988, when Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, 26 MLB owners — including Tribune Co., then owner of the Cubs, and White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf — and other baseball executives were found guilty of colluding to suppress player salaries.
The owners had been caught red-handed for the second consecutive offseason, conspiring to avoid bidding on a group of 79 free agents after the 1986 season, including future Hall of Famers Tim Raines, Andre Dawson and Jack Morris.
Not only did they not learn their lesson after the first collusion case stemming from the 1985-86 offseason, they basically doubled down.
“What transpired in 1986 occurred because everyone ‘understood’ what was to be done,” arbitrator George Nicolau wrote in an 81-page opinion. “By common consent, exclusive negotiating rights were, in effect, ceded to former clubs. There was no vestige of a free market, as that term is commonly understood. The object was to force players back to their former clubs, and the expectation was that all would go back in a replication of 1985, requiring nothing more to be done.”
Nicolau, who died last month at 94, also found that Reinsdorf, then-Brewers owner Bud Selig and American League President Bobby Brown called Phillies President Bill Giles to ask him not to sign Tigers freeagent catcher Lance Parrish. (Parrish did sign with the Phillies in March 1987.)
In essence, the owners believed keeping salaries down and retaining more of the revenues was more important than trying to win a World Series.
They cheated their own fans and left a black mark on the game. But because it occurred before the internet age, they weren’t forced to admit to their crimes or issue statements of remorse.
The collusion scandal comes up whenever the free-agent market is proceeding slowly, but it mostly has been forgotten.
The Astros cheating scandal, on the other hand, is not going away anytime soon.
In fact it has virtually hijacked the first week of spring training. Players and management in all 30 camps have been asked to comment on the results of Commissioner Rob Manfred’s investigation or react to the Astros’ apologies.
“I thought the apologies were whatever,” Dodgers star Cody Bellinger said Friday. “I thought (Astros owner) Jim Crane’s was weak. I thought Manfred’s punishment was weak, giving them immunity. Those guys were cheating for three years. What people don’t realize is (Jose) Altuve stole an MVP from (Aaron) Judge in ’17. Everyone knows they stole the ring from us. But it’s over.” Sorry, Cody. It ain’t over till it’s over. Astros players got off scot-free after the MLB investigation declared the team guilty of an elaborate scheme to decode catchers’ signs and relay them to hitters. Though the scheme was “player-driven,” according to the investigation, they were granted immunity to speak openly to investigators.
The only individuals who were still with the Astros who were punished were general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch, both of whom were suspended for the entire 2020 season and fired later that day by Crane. The Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora, who was the Astros bench coach in 2017, and former Astros player Carlos Beltran, the alleged ringleader of the scheme, was fired from his new position as Mets manager.
When the Astros opened camp Thursday in West Palm Beach, Fla., the media appropriately swarmed, forcing many finally to answer for their crimes. Crane showed how clueless he was by insisting the sign-stealing scheme “didn’t impact the game,” only to say a minute later, “I didn’t say it didn’t impact the game.”
Some players’ apologies were deemed insufficient when their remarks were relayed on Twitter, ensuring the controversy would grow. Former Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel, now with the White Sox, was one of the first players to apologize publicly, though he added a caveat: that the only difference between the 2017 Astros and other teams is the Astros were busted.
So should everyone else step up and apologize?
“I’m just one dude,” Keuchel said Thursday at Camelback Ranch. “I guess it’s ultimately up to the individual. We’re always going to be World Series champs because we were talented and, to me, we earned the right to be World Series champs. Just because stuff came out about the 2017 Astros doesn’t mean other teams weren’t doing illegal stuff. It just means that we were the ones that were caught.
“I’m not here to really dig into anything that happened. Ultimately it’s up to the individual to show remorse or try to move on. I chose the remorse route because, hey, personally, I felt like that was what was owed. I owed it to my family and that’s how I was raised.”
Apologies are a tricky thing. They can come from the heart and show real remorse, or they can be forced and sound disingenuous, as Altuve’s did Thursday.
Former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown is taking an apology tour on social media for his rampant misbehavior, telling the Hollywood, Fla., police, the NFL and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger he’s so, so sorry. Does anyone really believe Brown, or is he just trying to get back into the NFL?
Former Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa has steadfastly refused to apologize for his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs, making him persona non grata at Wrigley Field.
Juiced-up slugger Barry Bonds, on the other hand, is embraced by fans in San Francisco and the Giants organization in spite of his alleged cheating.
Just last week, former Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight was welcomed back to a game at Assembly Hall, where he received a standing ovation and a whitewash of his past misdeeds. I don’t remember Knight apologizing for choking a player or any of his other unacceptable behavior, though I do recall him discussing his firing by IU officials with ESPN and his classless comment: “I hope they’re all dead.”
As for the Astros, all the apologies in the world probably won’t mean anything to their peers. They’re America’s Villains for life.
We don’t know how their 2020 season will play out, but we can be pretty sure they’ll lead the league in being hit by pitches.