MARCO’S
BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE 2019: THE BIG TECHNO CHEAT!
You’ve
heard about it, but you just haven’t heard about it MUCH. The
biggest scandal in baseball since the massive steroid abuse era has
reared its ugly head and then...has strangely gone silent. What
gives?
According
to ex-Astros pitcher Mike Fiers, the Houston Astros had
a camera in the centerfield bleachers at Minute Maid Park in 2017
(and maybe beyond), picking up the opposing catcher’s signs (at
maximum zoom setting, of course!) and hard-wiring the picture into
the dugout hallway monitor where sign stealing experts identified the
coming pitch and had somebody in the dugout bang on a garbage can to
signal “breaking pitch coming.” Remember Dodger starter Yu
Darvish getting lit up like a Roman candle in the 2017 series? It
looks like some teams started noticing the peculiar garbage can
symphony emanating from the Houston dugout and the ‘Stros started
using signals from the bullpen in right field at Minute Maid instead.
Isn’t that a relief pitcher all by himself on the far side of the
the pen, jacket on, jacket off, jacket hanging over arm, standing,
sitting every other pitch? Hmmm...curious. Isn’t that George
Springer’s eyes darting toward right just before the pitch was
delivered? Hey...I thought hitters needed laser-like focus on the
pitcher’s delivery to succeed. Not these Astros...they just need to
get the signal so they can sit on the fastball.
I
like the Astros. When the Red Sox aren’t playing them I root for
them. But I can’t ignore the evidence. “Say it ain’t so,
‘Stro!”
In
case you forgot, the Astros won the World Series in 2017. Fiers
apparently thought the system was still being used against his new
teams (He was with the Tigers most recently) and thought it a
good idea to blow the whistle on his formers. He said young pitchers
were getting blown up against the Astros hitters and hurting their
careers because of the cheating. He’s right.
Astros
general manager Jeff Luhnow gave a clubhouse
impromptu to reporters and said “I’m not dodging the question,
I’m just not going to answer it right now” which is of course, a
TOTAL DODGE. And of course that set the tone for the response
to this revelation throughout the game. Nobody is talking. Not even
when other news began to trickle out...Astros execs actually ordered
their scouts to come up with a system to steal signs. Bench coach
Alex Cora (in 2017) and Astros manager A.J. Hinch are
implicated, along with former player and sign stealing expert Carlos
Beltran. (Who denies it.) I mean, this is a big time scandal.
You
might remember that it took fifty years for the truth to come out
about the New York Giants in 1951. They had a coach (Herman
Franks) with a telescope and a buzzer stationed in the
centerfield clubhouse to pick up the catcher’s signs and relay them
to an injured player in the bullpen who would simply stand or sit
depending on the pitch to come. This is how they went 23-5 to finish
off the season and make up a 13.5 game deficit to the Dodgers.
Then they won the 3 game playoff with the Brooklyns when Bobby
Thompson hit a walk off homer off pitcher Ralph Branca in
the third game...the famous “Shot Heard Round the World” that is
one of baseball’s most iconic moments. Thompson always denied he
got the sign but why would the Giants have stopped cheating in the
Playoffs so close to the climax of their nefarious scheme? Right when
they needed it most? Branca had to live with the infamy the rest of
his life. He died embittered after a life of wearing the goat horns
for that one epic failure. A failure now exposed as a probable BIG
CHEAT.
This
latest techno outrage just happened, and it’s a hell of a lot more
of an issue than just “boys will be boys”.
Silence
from Commissioner Manfred. This despite the fact
that the Red Sox and Yankees were caught using tech to
steal signs in 2017 themselves. On the Red Sox part, they were using
Apple watches to communicate the pitch to come. I don’t know what
the Yankees were accused of since nobody wants to talk about techno
sign stealing in baseball. Manfred issued a warning that if anybody
was caught in the future, it could be a big deal...but nothing
happened to the Sox or Yanks.
It’s
like if somebody saw a bunch of little lizards run under a rock and
said…”Okay, I saw some little lizards but if there’s a Gila
Monster under that rock I might do something... but I’m not going
to lift the rock to look right now.”
Well,
if Astros execs, scouts, bench coaches, managers and... I assume...
all their hitters are involved, that’s a pretty damn big Gila
Monster.
But
if you watch the MLB network or listen to baseball talk radio you’ll
barely hear this story mentioned. Baseball keeps putting out all
their flak about the winter meetings and free agents and the usual
hype and avoiding the whole subject of cheating on a massive scale by
one team...a now tainted World Series Champ….and perhaps who knows
how many other organizations.
In
my opinion, covering up the severity of this situation is the
absolute worst thing baseball can do. They need to get on top of it
immediately. To wit:
You
can’t suspend all the hitters who profited from the cheating...that
would destroy the Astros as a team and leave a hole in the league
schedule. The punishment has to be mainly organizational, similar to
what the penalities were for the St. Louis Cardinals when they
hacked the Astro’s computer scouting reports to get a leg up in
trade deals a few years ago. So…
1/
suspend and fine any team exec or staff member who
participated... for one year without pay. If they could do it to
Steinbrenner they can do it to these guys.
2/suspend
and fine any coach who was involved... one year. They did it to
Dodger skipper Leo Durocher in the 40’s when he hung out with
gamblers.
3/suspend
and fine any player or staff member who lies to the
investigators.
4/take
away ALL of the Astros draft choices next season. Also curtail
international signings.
5/fine
the Astros organization something like $20 million.
6/put
a big fat asterisk next to the Astros name in the list of
World Series Champs. Teams need a permanent reminder of the Wages of
Sin. You can’t take away the rings and give them to the Dodgers.
That would cause a riot in Las Vegas when everybody tried to get
their betting money back. Just intentionally besmirch the memory of a
questionable victory.
7/hire
tech spies to circulate throughout the ball parks looking for
cheats from now on.
The
Astros were widely suspected of being sign stealing cheats for years.
Now we know just how out of control they really were. This is not
traditional sign stealing...the first base coach or the runner on
second sees the catcher’s fingers and relays the info to the
batter. That’s been part of the game for years. Teams can change
signs and cover their fingers better to control it. But it’s
personnel on the field and dugout who are involved with purely human
resources. But a camera in the outfield? Relaying what to expect on
every pitch to every batter?
Sorry
Jose Altuve, but you’re going to have to lead the league in
hitting on your own. George Springer will have to get his record
number of Playoff homers the old fashioned way. And the Astros should
have to live in the cheating hole they’ve dug for themselves for
quite a while.
Marco
Perella
12/5/2019
