IMAGE REPAIR
Astros try to mend fences with sponsors, fans.
There was noise, applause, music, adoration, kids running the bases and adults seeking autographs Saturday during FanFest at Minute Maid Park, home of the 2017 World Series champion Houston Astros.
But there was silence as well.
Neither Jose Altuve nor Alex Bregman, two principal players on a 2017 team that executed what Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred described as a “player-driven and player-executed” system to violate baseball’s rules and defraud the game, chose Saturday to address specifics of a nine-page report on the scandal that led to the dismissal of general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch.
If there is remorse and apology, that will come later, perhaps next month after the ballclub gathers at West Palm Beach, Fla., for spring training. But for the moment, if there are fences to be mended, feelings to be reconciled or trust to be regained, Astros fans apparently will be left to their own devices.
Until the players speak, the focus of the As
tros’ efforts to cope with and move past what some have described as baseball’s worst performance-related scandal in a century remains on owner Jim Crane, who made the decision last Monday to fire Hinch and Luhnow rather than settle for the suspensions imposed by Manfred.
By firing his manager and general manager, said Gene Grabowski, a principal with the public relations firm kglobal, the Astros have made the appropriate sacrifice for their sins to the Lords of Baseball.
“They have thrown the virgin into the volcano,” Grabowski said.
With that, he said, the most important task facing Astros management is to move ahead, as Crane has done by apologizing to season ticket holders, contacting sponsors and receiving what he described as messages of continued support.
“You have to get past this,” Grabowski said.
‘I am sorry’
For some, including the thousands that attended FanFest, that likely won’t be a problem. Saturday, after all, was a day to be a fan, with all the unwavering devotion that entails.
Explanations or apologies likely won’t be necessary for many of those who filled the stadium’s club level to get autographs from Altuve, Bregman and a dozen other Astros players, or to take photos with the 2017 World Series trophy and the team’s two American League championship trophies.
For others, including the thousands who flocked to social media Friday to discuss newly offered allegations that the Astros had worn electronic devices on their bodies to receive pilfered signals, no amount of explanation, no degree of contrition, will ever suffice.
Crane did his best Friday, during an event that raised $2.6 million for the team’s charitable foundation, to move past the organizational trauma of the last week.
“People think we’re in crisis,” Crane said. “I certainly don’t believe that. We’ll be fine. We’ll get this behind us and get going and start playing baseball in the spring.”
Crane said he had spoken to four or five players and expected that players will “want to get united on the same page” before the public can expect any elaboration on the degree to which players knowingly cheated in 2017 and 2018 by using opponents’ signals relayed from a center field camera to the team’s dugout.
Crane said the team’s sponsors and advertisers who have helped make Astros one of the top five revenue-producing teams in Major League Baseball “have shown great support” since Monday’s announcement of sanctions and the subsequent firing of Hinch and Luhnow.
“With the way we’ve handled this, they’re behind us,” he said.
Crane, thus far, has been the only one among the team’s current remaining hierarchy to apologize to fans.
In a letter to season ticket holders, Crane wrote that the Astros accepted the findings and penalties imposed by MLB and that “mistakes were made and rules were violated.”
“I am sorry that we let you down,” the letter concluded. “Our goal is to be a championship organization that Houston is proud of.
We have work to do moving forward to ensure that we achieve that in the most honorable way. I promise that we will.”
The ‘Technology Era’?
Crane drew relatively good marks from some academicians and professionals who deal with the subjects of crisis communication and sports ethics.
“Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue once said, ‘All’s well that ends,’ ” said Kenneth Shropshire, CEO of the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University.
“It’s a form of the classic best path when any crisis hits: Accept responsibility, apologize, put safeguards in place and let the public know that you are doing all of these things.”
Reid Ryan, the Astros’ former president for business operations and now a consultant to Crane, said he hopes FanFest allows fans to begin the move from grief or anger from the team’s misdeeds toward healing.
“None of us wishes that this had happened,” Ryan said. “But there is a deep connection for this team in 2017 because it didn’t just win, it helped a community heal after Hurricane Harvey.
“No matter what happened, I don’t think the healing we helped facilitate will go away.”
The Astros’ misdeeds, Ryan said, will likely be the most memorable element of what he described as baseball’s “Technology Era,” a time of improper behavior that will be remembered alongside eras that allowed spitballs, corked bats, scuffed balls and steroids.
“I think you will see changes. Whether that is less technology and more enforcement, I don’t know,” he said. “But the commissioner will use what happened with the Astros and Yankees and Red Sox before them as an inflection point to make more changes.”
Astros alumni Jeff Bagwell and Lance Berkman also emphasized the need to look ahead.
“When I get a spanking from my dad, he doesn’t quit loving me and I don’t quit being his son,” Berkman said. “The Astros aren’t going to stop being part of Major League Baseball. You have to accept the punishment and move on.
“This is a clean organization. This is not a dirty organization. This is not a tricky organization. All these things notwithstanding, this is a great organization, and I think it will continue to be.”
Bagwell agreed with Altuve that it’s too early for players to react to the specific charges outlined in the commissioner’s report.
“Everyone is still trying to wrap their heads around it,” he said.
Others, however, favor a more direct approach. Jeff Van Gundy, the former Rockets coach who now works for ESPN, said the forgiving nature of Houston fans and the old saw that confession is good for the soul would be a better avenue than silence.
“You don’t have to get into specifics, but you can say, ‘I’m sorry for the role that I played in this, and I promise the Astros fans that not only will I promise not to do it again, I won’t tolerate anybody else doing it,’ ” Van Gundy said.
While some fans will scoff at the idea that players did anything wrong by violating the rules in a sport where competition is everything and winning is the only thing, Van Gundy said, “The earlier you deal with it, the more forthright you are, the better.
“Saying ‘I screwed up’ is the hardest thing to do. But it’s the simplest way to be forgiven.”
While players wait to comment, some fans await an answer.
“I would like an explanation and to know what they were thinking and an apology,” said season ticket holder Wendy Woods. 54. “Honestly, I’m pretty pissed off. I’m pissed off at the players that got the best manager in baseball fired. They knew what they were doing was wrong.”
At the same time, though, Woods said, “I’m an Astros fan all the way. This, too, shall pass.
“We will have to put up with a lot of guff. A bunch of us had planned to go to Arlington the second week of April, and now we don’t know if we’re going to go because we don’t want to put up with what might happen there.
“Maybe we’ll go anyway and take our World Series banner and wave it around.”
And maybe, a year from now, there will be another championship to celebrate as the Astros work toward a new beginning.
“At the end of the year, everything will be fine,” Altuve said. “We’re going to be in the World Series again. People don’t believe it. We will.”