I was once a sports columnist and with the Brewers but a few miles away, I was allowed to comment on the game of baseball freely. I enjoyed it, too. And this space hasn't paid much attention to it. But something's come up that's eating away at the very nature of the game, and the old sportswriter in me has to comment.
If you've been anywhere near the game lately, you know what it is: Cheating in baseball on a scale unimaginable until now.
That sad fact was revealed not long ago when the Houston Astros were caught cheating all the way through winning the World Series in 2017. It involved the 'inside' game of baseball, which has been going on for, probably, its entire existence.
Teams have been trying to steal the catcher's signs to the pitchers from the get-go. It gives everyone an advantage, though never a complete one. If you know what kind of pitch is coming, it'll give you an enormous advantage to hit it hard.
There are ways, and there are ways, though. For a runner on second base, a first- or third-base coach or someone in the dugout to see the catcher actually giving the signs and having figured out the pattern to subtlety signal something to his teammate at bat what's coming--well, that's the way it goes. The team on defense has been caught red-handed. Too bad for them.
That's considered within the realm of explainable and acceptable theft. But if the cheating extends to sources not actually playing--well, that's a crime that must be repaid.
Only recently has it been revealed that one of the great moments in all baseball history, the three-run homer hit by Bobby Thomson against Ralph Branca to give the New York Giants a come-from-behind victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers to cap a 13-game deficit in August and propel themselves into the 1951 World Series--12 days before I was born--was the product of direct cheating. The scoreboard at the Polo Grounds, the Giants' ballpark, was the old kind that posted scores by opening slots and sliding numbers into them. Those slots didn't have to be closed all the time. Someone sitting in those slots, probably with binoculars, signaled to Thomson that Branca was going to throw him a fastball.
We know the rest. Branca was forever branded a goat, Thomson a hero. Both are gone now, as are the most of the rest of those on the field except for instance Willie Mays, who was on-deck at the time. Justice will not be served. Not even the late Roger Kahn, who wrote for the New York Herald Tribune at that time, said he knew of the cheating. He recently died.
Know this: Had the Dodgers known that they'd been had by direct cheating, that the Giants got World Series checks that they could have had but didn't (albeit the losers' share, since the Yankees beat them)--a double play in the aforementioned situation, for instance, would have won the game and driven the playoff to a deciding third game--there would have been, well, a moment of payback. Maybe several moments.
Nobody would have needed to say anything. The next time Branca faced Thomson--they were in the same league, so the schedule would have provided the opportunity--he might have delivered a message that no one would have mistaken. That's what you can do with a baseball thrown ninety miles an hour or faster. Back in the day, it would have been seen as, well, the thing that must be done.
Maybe the benches would have emptied. Maybe it would have led to a beanball war. That's how things got worked out back then.
Such is the new dilemma faced by baseball. Upon knowing that the Astros used cameras to tell the signs and then a trashcan signal to alert their hitters and then won the World Series to boot, opposing players have felt free to comment, as well they might.
But here's the thing: "I'm sorry" isn't going to cut it. The Astros' players have tried that. Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers, the team Houston defeated in the Series, responded: Ain't good enough. Something else has to happen for us to consider this matter at rest. As the Atlanta Braves' Nick Markakis put it, reflecting no doubt the attitudes of others: "Every single guy over there deserves a beating."
But Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is bungling this from the start. The people covering baseball in the press know--they know--what's about to happen: namely, that Astros players still with the club from 2017 will be thrown at. They're already sending out the alarm: Someone could get hurt very badly.
Yup. And a World Series ring means the ultimate to any player. Nobody else will ever know whether the Astros would have been good enough to win one on their own. Indeed, articles have recently run that have revealed that their cheating was something of an open secret among the players, and that former Astros players provided the Washington Nationals with counterintelligence about it as they entered the most recent World Series against Houston. The Nationals' pitching batteries then came up with a complex scheme of signs that couldn't be deciphered. They won the Series, but it took them seven games to do it.
Baseball has its own enforcement capabilities, and Manfred has announced that throwing at Astros players won't be tolerated. Going public about it is probably good public relations, but is inadequate in the actuality.
And that's because purposeful hitting of players isn't tolerated, anyhow. The pitchers are immediately ejected and sometimes the managers, too. It's the thing that can be done. But baseball has an underlying question: So?
Pitchers, and managers, are sometimes happy to sacrifice a bit of their now-enormous salaries to make the points they need to make. Without anyone saying anything, sometimes pitchers are expected to do it to maintain order and defend their teammates. There is an omertà among players: You don't reveal what's obviously in front of you. If so, you can't be trusted and maybe become a future target.
I've played the game, and this is something you don't want to take lightly. This stuff is dangerous. I've pitched at three different levels, and people know there's a difference between one that gets away and one that is the 'purpose pitch,' a.k.a. chin music. There is a way to 'come inside,' as players say, that keeps hitters honest. Hitting someone is part of the game as long as it's done honestly, which is to say rarely, without wicked intent. Getting close is usually the point; nobody wants to hurt anybody, not really.
Pitchers need to own the outside edge and that split second when the hitter's not sure where the next one will go. They 'come inside' to enforce that. But sometimes you overestimate, and when there's a response where someone gets one in the leg, well, mostly players shrug. It's a reminder. That's business. As a catcher--where I played most of the time--I never had the kind of conversation where a pitcher just knew what to do. I left that up to them. That's why it's almost never done: Responses are guaranteed.
The other thing about this can't be undone, either: Long memories that extend years. In the immediate future, teams facing the Astros might not be inclined to throw at them--which, in fact, gives the Astros the advantage since they now know that they can look for a pitch on the outside corner without being brushed back, nearly as good a benefit as knowing exactly what pitch is coming; pitchers who can't own the outside edge of the plate by coming inside won't be very effective, either. So they'll be obedient and nod their heads, probably through Memorial Day, when the pennant race renews itself and people's attentions are drawn away. Then it'll start.
Astros players will go down and the opposition managers will provide (in)sufficient excuses, as in sorry-not-sorry. There may be fights, and not the shoving-match scrums that are normally portrayed. There will be responses. People will get hurt, maybe badly.
Not only that, but a 2017 Astros player who's been traded or has signed with another team won't be forgotten, either. He'll be going down when the wrong pitcher faces the wrong hitter. It may take two or three years. But nobody forgets. Ever.
Firing the team's manager and the general manager was a good gesture by Houston ownership, as well as not allowing Carlos Beltran to take over as manager of the Boston Red Sox, but it won't accomplish the justice others seek. Rob Manfred just fed those fires by saying--and I can't believe a commissioner would be this stupid--that the World Series trophy was just "a piece of metal" and thus not that big of a deal to get excited about.
That'll just give other teams another punchline to throw in when Astros players get dusted or worse: Like your piece of metal? Bench jockeys will harass them endlessly. Left-handers with big, sweeping sliders will shout Don't tell me I can't come inside! when they 'lose their aim momentarily' and hit the right-handed-hitting Astro not in the back foot--which is where they often aim, but it rarely gets there because the catcher nabs it or the hitter can spin out of the way--but in the ribs. At that angle, it can't be dodged. Look for it oh-and-two, nobody on base. Here it comes.
The only way to make this right is for the 2017 Astros players left in the game to be suspended for a long, long time--perhaps half a season, something they'll feel in their pocketbooks. Would there be appeals? Of course; it would take a while to clean up this awful mess. After all, the basis of the game itself, the competitive nature, has been compromised. It's a matter of integrity. (Word is that the collective bargaining agreement would prevent such a solution. No, it wouldn't: Not with a memorandum of understanding. But that would take some stretching by both sides.)
But consider, if you will, the messes that will inevitably emerge upon what other players consider to be a lack of sufficient justice. Because justice will be enforced one way or another, formally or informally. We'll be watching to see which one it is.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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