You'd like to think that competing professionals would operate ethically, within the bounds of propriety as well as the written rules. But that's not true in the field of journalism, or politics, or professional sports; there always have been and always will be those willing to trade shards or whole slices of integrity for an advantage. In baseball, this is what happened with doctored baseballs, with corked bats, with teams taking liberties with domestic and international scouting and signings, and most notably, in the steroids era.
Ignoring those lessons of history is the mistake that commissioner Rob Manfred made as the growing problem of electronics in sign stealing emerged. As one manager said recently, the first domino of this fell when MLB implemented instant replay. Rather than stationing a fifth umpire or some sort of independent arbiter to deal with each questionable decision, MLB decided to bestow challenges on each manager, and along with that came the installation of video replay systems close to each dugout. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, that was like handing a bag of fireworks to a teenager; we all probably should have anticipated the falling dominoes that followed.
1. Players retreating to the video room to review ball-strike calls -- and, not surprisingly, the slow regression of the umpire-player relationships, as players reacted in real time to mistakes. As one manager said this week, the video screens are so close to the dugouts that he sometimes has yelled from his spot, "Ball or strike?" And he'd immediately get his answer, supporting his byplay with the plate umpire.
2. With heightened awareness of the balls and strikes, there would be increased focus on the intercommunication of opponents -- the manager's signs, a coaches' signs and the signs given by the catcher.
By summer 2017, the river of complaints about alleged sign stealing was rising, reflected directly in the number of catcher visits to the mound. There was a lot of commentary during the 2016 postseason about the exponential increase in visits to the mound by Chicago Cubs catcher Willson Contreras, particularly when there was a runner at second base. But his manager, Joe Maddon, defended Contreras, saying that he supported the rookie's effort to get it right, and if walking the signs out to the mound was the way to beat outside intervention, well, that's what he should do.
In August 2017, the issue spilled onto the public stage with the New York Yankees' accusations that the Boston Red Sox were using Apple Watches to alert baserunners at second base -- and, in turn, hitters -- about the identity of forthcoming pitches.
Rob Manfred is a parent, and he almost certainly knows the challenges of dealing with kids stepping outside accepted boundaries -- and what he effectively did in response to the Yankees-Red Sox situation was to yell at them to stop doing it. He issued a statement, there was minor discipline and a warning. Don't do it anymore.
And it clearly wasn't enough. We know this because we have learned, thanks to Mike Fiers and The Athletic, that the Houston Astros followed the news, weighed the possible rewards against the risks announced in that moment, and continued to cheat.
What Manfred should've done at that time, as written about here, was to fully anticipate and announce the kind of discipline he rendered in the Astros' case last week. If you cheat using electronics, you could get kicked out of the game for a year, or maybe longer.
The commissioner didn't do that then, and he didn't do it the next year, after Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow brazenly approved the stationing of a club employee next to the opponents' dugouts in the 2018 playoffs.
Manfred should have come out in the fall of 2018 and stated flatly: If you participate in this act, it could end your career in Major League Baseball. That kind of declaration at that time would have been too late to prevent the Astros' actions of 2017, but it would have put everybody on notice, perhaps curtailed some cheaters, and undercut any conspiracy (theories?) involving electronic devices and buzzers and the like.
That kind of declaration would've given pause to even the most reckless cheaters because the consequences of the penalties would've so far outweighed the possible benefits -- knowing the identity of pitches in one sequence in one game. The necessary co-conspirators would've been petrified. The coaches. The replay staffers. The clubhouse attendants. A house electrician weirdly summoned to install a monitor behind the dugout.
Manfred is not responsible for the Astros' cheating or any other cheating, just as Bud Selig wasn't handing out steroids to Jose Canseco and others in the generation of performance-enhancing drugs. Selig didn't possess the practical power to unilaterally stop the problem. But the steroid era mushroomed in the vacuum of inaction, on Selig's watch; he could have done more, and he could have done it sooner. Similarly, Manfred was too deliberate and tepid in his responses to the first ulcers of the sign-stealing troubles.
This chapter should serve as a reminder that, yes, some competitors will do whatever is necessary to gain an edge, and that when the integrity of the game is at stake, the rules and penalties must be harsh and strictly enforced.
Because of what happened in the steroid era, fans will forever debate what was real and what was artificially enhanced, what was accomplished with skill and guile versus and what was won through cheating. As the Astros have learned this week, their accomplishments face the same interminable questions. It's a terrible and self-inflicted wound that shakes the game's underpinnings.
Elsewhere around the major leagues
• Chaim Bloom, the head of baseball operations for the Red Sox, seems patient in his talks with other teams about Mookie Betts, with the asking price perceived as too high by rival evaluators. Boston has indicated to other teams, according to sources, that any team that lands Betts will also have to take David Price (or Nathan Eovaldi presumably), with either most or all of the money owed to Price, $96 million. That means assuming well over $100 million for the pitcher and Betts, who will make $27 million in the upcoming season, his last before reaching free agency -- and that's for starters.
The Red Sox are also asking for two high-end prospects to front the deal. In some respects, what Boston is asking for is something akin to what Seattle got for Edwin Diaz -- to get the closer, the Mets also assumed the bulk of the money owed to Robinson Cano, and gave up star prospects Jarred Kelenic and Justin Dunn. The Mets' end of that trade was widely and immediately panned within the industry, so it may be that the Red Sox never find the kind of offer they seek. But Bloom has months to let this play out: Rival execs believe that Betts's trade value really won't drop between now and the July 31 trade deadline.
• After the initial story about the Astros' sign stealing was published by The Athletic, some members of the team reached out to friends in other organizations to tell them that the alleged transgressions were overstated, and that the team didn't gain much from its actions. Once the commissioner issued his report and at least some of the details were revealed, however, friendships have been undercut by anger over the degree of what the Astros did.
By 2017, the suspicions of illegal sign stealing were rampant, and it's possible the Astros justified their actions under the premise that everybody was doing it. The problem with that logic, of course, is that not everybody was doing it, and Houston's system was more advanced and refined than that of most if not all of its peers. On a lot of days, the Astros had an illicit competitive advantage.
• The manager's office in Fenway Park was moved and rebuilt before the 2019 season, and from that new location, Alex Cora's access to the players was enhanced. Anybody walking into the clubhouse from the parking lot would pass by his office, giving Cora an opportunity to greet Xander Bogaerts or Betts or others with a wave or a thought or a handshake, just colleagues going to work together.
Like Terry Francona, Bruce Bochy, Bobby Cox and other Hall of Fame-caliber managers of recent times, Cora possesses an extraordinary ability to relate to everyone, probably because he's had a range of experiences. A star college player. A third-round pick of the Dodgers. A longtime big leaguer (14 years), first as a regular, then a bench player who became the consigliere to Manny Ramirez -- he sometimes circled back and paid the clubhouse dues that Ramirez neglected to pay -- and was a mentor to Dustin Pedroia. He demonstrated empathy for struggling rookies, for frustrated veterans, for the teenagers who shined shoes and picked up laundry off clubhouse floors.
He was an analyst for ESPN, offering insights in two languages. Full disclosure: In that time with us, Alex became a friend.
He was a general manager for the Puerto Rico national team in the World Baseball Classic. He had grieved the loss of his father as a teenager, and become a father himself. Cora imbues accumulated knowledge and experience, a cauldron overflowing with intellect and competitiveness. He is as talented a manager as I've seen in more than three decades of covering baseball.
As Cora's situation played out this week, I could not help but to think about Shoeless Joe Jackson, another remarkable talent who left the stage for which he was so well suited. Jackson's peers were in awe of his ability. Even Ty Cobb, who was famously critical of the game's style of play and players after he retired, spoke reverently of Jackson, who would finish his 13-year career with a career average of .356, and an adjusted OPS of 170, ninth highest of all time, better than Cobb's 168.
Jackson batted .382 in 1920, in the year after the Black Sox scandal. And then he was gone, given a ban by commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, never to return.
Now Cora is gone and out of baseball indefinitely, pending a ruling by Manfred, because of decisions he made along the way. It is unclear whether he will manage in the big leagues again, or when that might happen, if it happens.