5GoldGlovesOF,75

But only if the world conveniently ignores the words of Logan Morrison, an actual MLB player, who said the Astros have been banging trash cans since 2014 "before Cora even got there"...

This is what I've been trying to say in different ways about the hypocrite MLB: Not only has sign-stealing been part of the game forever, but so has the way teams have policed themselves in-game. If a pitcher or catcher detect they're being detected, they often counter with a fastball aimed at the hitter's head. It may seem insane and I'm not condoning it, but just look at the disparity in consequences... Throwing a missile 100 mph at somebody's head on the street would be considered much more of a criminal offense than peaking at fingers, and yet, it's only punishable in baseball by five-game suspensions. But if you use video, you're gone for a year or more (but only managers and GMs).

It was very convenient for the Astros to throw an ex-employee under the bus, but notice how none of the Red Sox have expressed any outrage or feelings of betrayal for their ex-skipper? On the contrary, there have been outpourings of love from players to owners. All vituperations have come from media or forum posters. Of course, many team members or personnel are also involved, but could it also be because everyone knows the hypocrite MLB has overreacted in its grandstand play in setting examples of two franchises when so many more are obviously guilty? The MLB has its super villain in Cora and now would love to close the case. Manfred has made his stand and I would guess would desperately like to keep New York out of this. With this bad publicity for an industry already in trouble, it's even more imperative that the Yankees get back to the World Series. The MLB has been doing all it can for NY since the schedule-makers let them play Baltimore and Detroit, the two worst teams in the AL, for the first nine games of 2019, while at the same time sending Boston to the West Coast for the first 11. Now they have paved the way to an easier path to the postseason by emasculating two major rivals, while at the same time implying the pair may have robbed the Big Apple (and Hollywood) of deserved hardware... a stance which conveniently shields the "victims" from their own complicity. The pressure is really on the Yankees to win now. If only they could get by the Twins...

I'm not in denial and neither is Cora. He admitted what he did and apologized to the Red Sox. You've voiced your opinions of Cora over and over, as have I about sign-stealing as an element of baseball that is as old as the game, and the hypocrisy of the MLB declaring that sign-stealing is suddenly wrong... but not with human eyes looking at the opposition, only with human eyes looking at the opposition on a screen. Technology advanced sign-stealing to a new level, but there was nothing newly nefarious about its intentions until the commissioner banned tech. Cora was one of many who still used it, and now he is one of the few to be punished. But sign-stealing will always be part of the game of baseball, and anyone who doesn't like that or doesn't want to expose their children to it will always have the option of not watching. Btw, ex-big leaguer and manager Phil Garner used "rat" when referring to Mike Fiers.

Cora is the patsy in all this. He will resurface in a few years, hired by some network as an analyst like ARoid (or maybe by a security company who hires rehabilitated thieves to test out their systems). I think a publisher somewhere could make a lot of money getting Cora's side of the story, as long as he names names -- imagine the Astros and Red Sox players and management that are involved, not to mention all the people who taught Cora the inside game of MLB baseball on the teams he played for, including the Dodgers, Guardians, Mets, Rangers and Nationals. But hopefully AC is a stand-up guy and not a rat.

...and two years after he pitched for the Astros.

I'm going to predict that when all facts come out -- about this era that will come to be known as a time when many teams and players used technology in many ways to get an edge --- the scapegoats will be -- maybe not exonerated -- but regarded as less culpable to some extent. It may not be in a year or two, when/if some are rehired or allowed back in the game, but maybe in a decade or two.

We're moving forward -- replying to this thread started by a Sox fan, and without the ex-manager's name in the title. My choices are either Mike Lowell or Eduardo Perez; both good former MLB players with Boston ties who have stayed in the game as analysts, both respected by the industry, both bilingual. The modern majors doesn't require managers with experience managing, just leaders who value employees. Old school retread disciplinarians need not apply.

Wanna bet he was ordered to by Manfred, and also ordered to never admit he was ordered to? They so want this to go away, but the Genie is hitting the bottle.

Not everybody -- Eovaldi for Cy Young (and when he wins it, he'll finally have all the vowels).

This "scandal" is far from over, and Beltran is the next to go. It doesn't matter that Manfred absolved the players -- and is desperate to keep New York out of the mix, since it is too important for MLB right now that the media capital of the world gets back on top again -- but Beltran is going to have such a hard time managing the Mets answering questions about "cheating" that Wilpon might just join the other superintendents (Henry and Crane) and call it a snowday. And no, it's not a parallel to when the Mets changed their minds at the last minute about Wally Backman, because he was charged with an actual crime -- not engaging in an accepted part of the culture of his sport like trying to decipher secret codes. Yankee fans also just better hope when Beltran crashes he doesn't come clean about his tenure as their "special advisor" -- and the reasons Cora called him their "best free agent acquisition"...

Manfred's single BS theory...

Sorry, double trouble...

Manfred and the MLB would love to blame their culture soley on their chosen scapegoats, but the only way this is going away is if they blackmail all teams and players into silence under threat of blackballing them from the game. If Cora and Hinch are Oswald and Ruby in this conspiracy, who are Luhnow and Dombroski... Castro and LBJ? JBJ? (the Boring Commission will make up something). In the meantime, we need Keith Hernandez to spit...

I'm not ignoring what Fiers said, but if he was so concerned about the issue, why didn't he come out while he was an Astro? Didn't he celebrate their title and wear their ring? Logan Morrison said today he heard Astros banging trash cans as early as 2014, and that lots of teams were using video to crack catcher's codes, including New York, Toronto and Los Angelos... None of this really went public until opposing teams started sending reconnaissance employees to intercept foes spying on each other. Then Cora praised Beltran last summer as a great addition to the Yankees by "paying attention to details". Cora may just turn out to be Manfred's fallguy.

Honesty and moral principles have everything to do with what goes on inside a clubhouse -- in any sport, in the context that it stays inside the clubhouse. These aren't crimes the players committed here, but an accepted part of the game of baseball for over a century. It's just been taken to an advanced level using the latest tech available... which the commish didn't like it, told them to stop, and is now swinging from the heels about. I never played the game for money, but you might believe someone who did -- like Merloni, when he says the effects of sign-stealing are overrated and inconsequential. Try telling that to the same media that is increasingly changing its tune on HOF voting for steroid users.

I wish you had put quotation marks around integrity. How do you think Fiers' ex-teammates or even current teammates feel about him? I'd suspect a lot are more concerned about trust rather than penalties or consequences (ya, I know "stitches for snitches" originated in the streets, not from retaliatory beanballs)... It might suck to be part of the Red Sox right now, but none of us wear the laundry (except the souvenirs). But as a fan, I refuse to put an asterisk on 2018 -- or 04 or 07 or 13 -- when my favorite teams won drinking performance-enhancing protein shakes or shots of Jack Daniels or manipulating the latest technology -- because that was the culture of their milieu at that time in history... just like the Yankee dynasty that won during the steroid era or champs snorting powder in the 70s and 80s or eating greenies in the 60s or using binoculars before Bobby Thomson's HR in 1951. But I agree it's time for this era to stop, mainly because what's really bad for the game are all the sign-delays that make it such a drag to watch.

Great line, notin. Those wily Red Sox sure were clever in getting so many runners to stop at second in '18 -- now we know why they led the majors in doubles. Wait a minute, they led in doubles again in '19...

"It's not like people admit to everything." ... like all the other players and teams who are not on trial this week. Did Altuve know a slider was coming from Chapman last October? Or did he only know what Sale was throwing when he hit three HRs in Game One of '17 ALDS? Or which year did he do PEDs? Manfred can pretend to the public he's in charge, but he'll never change baseball or stop technology from evolving. Banning all video from dugouts, bullpens and clubhouses might work, but we all know that's not even feasible in 2020...

Remind them that the '17 Astros won 53 away games vs. 48 at home; .654 winning percentage on the road, compared to .593 in Houston. And that the '18 Red Sox went 7-1 on the road in the postseason, when the MLB took measures to ensure that no teams could use videos unethically. The hypocritical MLB said it's ok to peak at signs with human eyes, just not with electronic eyes. Sign "stealing" has been part of the game forever, but how much it helps can never be proven. I remember in high school with base coaches rooting for batters: first names for fastball, last names for offspeed... some of us didn't want to know; we only had seconds to react either way (especially since the "signs" were often unreliable).

I totally disagree. Astros in the investigation reported they know of at least eight more teams involved in the same types of tech-based subterfuge. We can assume those are mostly American League teams... are we that naive to think players and clubs in the NL aren't privy to or don't participate in the same culture and methods? The Astros and Red Sox won, so of course they're targets of whistle-blowers; nobody cares about how the Orioles or Marlins tried to get an edge. They all honor their oaths of Omerta until after the conquests -- and then we notice that only (perhaps resentful) EX-employees start squealing. I've downplayed this sign-stealing "scandal" from the beginning, because players and teams will always try to get an edge on competition. I can't downplay the consequences, but the "integrity" of the game isn't as much at stake as the pace of the game because of all this crap.

Astros' owner just fired Hinch and Lunhow. Maybe Henry brought Bloom in when he did so he didn't have to fire his GM right before the next season...

You're just saying that because you want it to be true. Henry will bring back Lovullo, who should've been appointed full-time skipper the year after he interimmed. They already offered Manny Sanguillen in trade.

MLB pretending to the public that no baseball teams will try to intercept secret codes contrived to deceive opponents ever again... Now we have something almost tangible to discuss... Biggest future question of the offseason: WHO will manage the Sox in 2020? A minion controlled by a Cora drone? A Bloom recruit? Varitek? Bobby V in a fake beard disguise? WHO???

Henry is right about the media: it keeps recording his words, replaying them on the news and quoting them in the papers.