A Flood of Foot-in-Mouth

The more the Astros talk about their cheating ways, the worse they come off.  Thanks to MLB.com for being brave—or clueless—enough to print the torrent of head-scratching remarks.

Let’s start with new Houston manager Dusty Baker, barely two weeks on the job and already talking gibber.  Baker is upset that other teams are saying they may throw at Astros’ hitters.  Oh, my.

“I’m depending on the league to try to put a stop to this seemingly premeditated retaliation that I’m hearing about,” Baker was quoted in an MLB.com story from February 15.  “In most instances in life, you get kind of reprimanded when you have premeditated anything.  I’m just hoping that the league puts a stop to this before somebody gets hurt.”  Because, after all, “It’s not good for the game, it’s not good for kids to see it.  Stop the comments, and also stop something before it happens.”

Wow, Mr. Old School all of a sudden wants help from above.  Any other time I’d expect to hear a lecture from Baker on how the game can police itself, but, of course, that would be in defense of his players throwing at or sliding into the opposition, spikes high.  Obviously, this is different because Dusty Baker thinks it is.

If he were given to reflection, Baker might wonder why the rest of baseball is so upset with the Astros.  Hint:  It has something to do with the severity of the punishment meted out, or lack thereof.  The Astros get to keep their 2017 World Series rings along with the winner’s share, and all they had to do was recite some lines about being sorry and having learned their lessons, however unspecified.  Absent a more thorough investigation that spelled out what the Astros did, who did it and when, having Dusty Baker around saying stupid stuff will have to suffice as added punishment. 

That, and having a player like Carlos Correa try to talk his way out of a paper bag.  In an interview with Ken Rosenthal (the transcript also published in MLB.com on the 15^th), Correa started off on the right track, saying, “It was wrong, and we’ve got to own that, and we’ve got to take that.”  If only Correa has stopped there, but no.    

            He felt the need to respond to the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger, who’s pretty adamant the Astros stole the ’17 World Series from his team and Jose Altuve snatched that year’s MVP from Aaron Judge of the Yankees.  In Correa’s moral universe, it’s OK for other players to say the cheating was wrong, “But when you stand in front of the camera and you don’t know the facts, you don’t know what happened and you’re not informed and you try to rip one of my teammates like that, when you don’t know—“  Well, yes, then what?  Correa didn’t finish his line of thought, maybe after he realized the only way someone could get all the necessary facts would be for Carlos Correa to spell them out in detail.

 

            Instead, Correa jumped into a stream of consciousness, splashing this way and that.  He went after ex-teammate and whistleblower Mike Fiers, who needs to “tell the truth.  He should tell the whole world the truth,” which would include saying Altuve didn’t cheat.

 

            Only that’s irrelevant—Altuve’s cheating teammates gave him opportunities he wouldn’t have had otherwise.  If you benefit from the actions of cheaters, well, you’re sort of a cheater yourself.  Same for Correa’s spin on the 2017 ALCS and World Series.  Once the opposition thinks you’re cheating (and you are and have been), you have an unfair advantage.  Maybe the Astros did play it straight those two series (but why would they if the cheating worked?).  In that case, their cheating allowed them to get inside their opponents’ heads, so to speak.

 

            The Yankees and Dodgers may have taken every Houston run as proof the Astros were cheating, again, even if they weren’t.  That in turn could have led to despair.  It doesn’t matter what set of signs we use, those guys will know.  Yes, head games are as old as sports, and they should be judged the way sign-stealing has been.  There’s a right way and a wrong way to psyche out your opponents just as there’s a right way and a wrong way to steal signs.       

 

            Maybe someday the Astros will figure that out, but I won’t hold my breath.