On the TunneySide of Sports January 20, 2020 #779 Up next… Mom Was Right
After further review… As a kid, whenever I asked my mom if I could do something that bordered on out-of-the-ordinary or perhaps even illegal and used the excuse “Well, Billy (our next-door neighbor) did it.” Mom would counter, “Well, if Billy jumped off his roof, would you?” Her message, obviously, was to get me to see the logic or illegality of my intention.
In today’s example, it was the illegality of the Houston Astros in the 2017 World Series using video cameras to capture the stealing of signs of their opponents, which may have caused irreputable damage not only to them but to MLB as well. Yes, the stealing of signs from Little League to the major leagues has always been an acceptable act in baseball. Actually, in most sports trying to see what your opponent is planning has been a way of attempting to get a jump on them. Thou Shall Not Steal, one of the 10 Commandments in the Jewish Torah as well that of children age five and older, is universally understood.
Of course, it does happen in other sports as it did to the New England Patriots in 2007. The era of technology seems to have caught-up to sports franchises before they could “right their ships.” Certainly, some teams may have attempted it before but were not caught. “Well, Billy did it” (my alibi) doesn’t really cut it – never did.
What happened to “just do the right thing!” which is what Houston Astros Owner Jim Crane did. To recap, when the Astros played in the 2017 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers the Astros were found guilty of sign-stealing using electronics. Astros employees in the team’s video replay room were decoding opponents’ signs using their center field cameras. The Astros bench would call their video room, obtain the sign, then bang a bat on a trash can telling the batter — 2 bangs would be an off-speed pitch, i.e., curveball, slider etc., and no bangs meant fastball.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s investigation resulted in Astros manager A. J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow being suspended from MLB for one year. Manfred said while it’s impossible to determine if this misdeed actually impacted the results of that game, it did cause significant “harm to the game.”
Astros owner Crane who had hired both Hinch and Luhnow fired them saying that while both may have not been directly involved, they knew what was happening and should have put a stop to it. The Astros were fined $5 million dollars and will forfeit their next two first and second-round amateur draft picks.
Will you put your integrity foremost when called upon to correct a misdeed?
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