Spring training’s here! Pitchers, catchers and sign-stealers, play ball!

you see your pitcher execute a perfect slider down in the zone with two strikes and someone doesn’t even flinch at it, you start to get alarm bells going off in your head. I spent a lot of time wondering if I was doing something in my setup that would be tipping pitches to the other team.”

In the current scandal, punishments were meted out — but not for players. The general manager and field manager of the Astros were suspended for a season by Major League Baseball and then fired by the team. The field manager of the Red Sox — a bench coach for the 2017 Astros who helped mastermind their scheme — was let go by Boston.

Is there a solution? Major League Baseball can rewrite the rules and tighten surveillance, but the cat-andmouse games with resourceful teams will continue. The best chance of preventing electronic cheating is to hand out severe punishment for teams and players who are caught: a minimum fiveyear ban from baseball for any players, coaches or front office personnel engaged in electronic cheating. Long enough to ruin a career.

To realize how important stiff penalties are to prevent cheating, consider gambling in baseball. The deterrence of lifetime suspensions for the eight players involved in the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal was quite effective. After that, baseball had no major gambling issues for more than 60 years until Pete Rose started betting on games.

At the next collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the Players Association, after the 2021 season, the requisite levels of evidence, appeals and due process for electronic cheating should be part of the negotiations so that guilty players can be disciplined. Like the prohibition on gambling posted in every clubhouse, the rules outlining what is not permitted in terms of sign stealing should be as well.

The ethos of baseball was once explained by former Milwaukee Brewers manager George Bamberger, who told the Washington Post, “We do not play baseball. We play professional baseball. Amateurs play games. We are paid to win games. There are rules, and there are consequences if you break them. If you are a pro, then you often don’t decide whether to cheat based on if it’s ‘right or wrong.’ You base it on whether or not you can get away with it, and what the penalty might be.”

In baseball, that risk-reward has generally been on the side of breaking the rules; to change that equation, the consequences must be stiff, career-threatening penalties. Undoing past damage may be impossible, but going forward there is a way to deter cheaters. Hit them where they live.