Please, Just Leave the Astros Alone!
Ok, summer is over fall is in full swing and I am back in the writing game. What, you might say, is your first post going to be about Chris? My response, Baseball of course! The Fall Classic just ended and once again the Astros are champs, this brings all the Astros haters out to spew their vile and wild accusations.
As I wrote in my very first Substack one year ago, the Astros are not the first team to steal signs and they’re not even the first team to use technology to do it.
Do people just not understand that sign stealing has a long and nearly universal history in Major League baseball? Why is the uproar surrounding the Astros sign stealing so much louder than the noise surrounding any other team? It can’t just been new coverage of the incident, because the news coverage of baseball in the past was like nothing we see today. Sure there are 24 hour sports channels and a whole channel devoted to just baseball but the audience isn’t the same. From the 1920’s until the mid 60’s baseball was the sports king of America. The NFL, NBA and NHL were niche sports that didn’t consume the attention of the majority of Americans like baseball did. Look of this image of the crowd gathered around an electric scoreboard in New York City to “watch” the 1911 World Series between the Philadelphia A’s and the New York Giants.
Here is another picture, this time it is the 1912 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Giants and the picture was taken in Washington DC.
here is a close up of what the people are looking at.
That is one heck of a crowd to “watch” a game that doesn’t even involve the team in that city. So the idea that the outrage against the Astros is bigger because of the coverage of the game is just silly. A quick internet search of the phrase “Astros cheating 2022” gave 863,000 results. However, there are only five players still on the roster from the 2017 team. They have a new General Manager and a new coaching staff, so apparently what the sports media wants us to believe is that just working for the Astros organization makes someone want to cheat.
After Game 2 the media said that the Astros were up to their old tricks again after it was discovered that Astros catcher Martin Maldonado had used an illegal bat in Game 1. Maldonado, the worst hitter on the Astros, thought he would be able to get a playoff boost from his friend and future Hall of Famer, Albert Pujols. Martin messaged Pujols and asked for some advice. Pujols messaged him back and sent eight of his old bats along as well. Unfortunately for Maldonado, MLB made that type of bat illegal in 2011. Pujols was grandfathered in because he had been using the bat before that. That bat was illegal because it was made of maple instead of ash like most bats. The problem was that the grain in those bats ran in such a way that when the bats broke, instead of breaking into two pieces, they shattered into many pieces flying all over the place. Wood doesn't hold up well to pressure applied perpendicular to the grain. The old maple bats tended to have a "slope of grain" issue, where the grain sloped at an angle through the cylinder of the bat — and the pressure of hitting a fastball at just the right angle was enough to shatter the bat. It was a safety issue nothing more. There was no advantage to using the bat and as soon as he was made aware of the rule Maldonado went back to the bats he had been using during the season. Do you think this stopped people from accusing Maldonado and the Astros of cheating? Nope, the headline in nearly every article I read said “Astros Up to Their Old Tricks” or some variation of that.
The uproar only got louder after some fans and commentators saw Astros pitcher Framber Valdez touching the wrist on his glove hand. They thought he had some kind of illegal substance on his wrist, even though the umpires checked him ever two innings just like they do for all pitchers now. Even the Phillies players said they didn’t see anything wrong with what he was doing, because he did it the last time he pitched against them earlier in the season but once again the prevailing wisdom is that the Astros are cheating. The tone of the coverage is that the Astros are guilty until proven innocent. Am I saying that Valdez wasn’t using something, no I’m not, but he wasn’t caught so it can’t be proven. This is not an issue that only affects the Astros, if anything this is a MLB issue. There has only been one pitcher that has ever been punished under the foreign substances rule. Hector Santiago for Seattle in 2021 was suspended for 10 games after being caught by the umps with rosin on his glove. I’m sure that pitchers are trying everything they can to help them, they always have. There have always been pitchers that try to get away with using something to give their pitches a little extra movement, that’s why the umps get rid of baseballs throughout the game, any little scuff or scrape can affect the flight patch of the ball. Again this is what I and most baseball people view as an acceptable level of cheating. What is an acceptable level of cheating? Sign stealing, doctoring a ball, mowing the infield grass to help your team and hurt the other team., all those are against the rules but players and teams are always trying to bend those rules. So, why are the Astros being held to a higher standard then every other team?
I just don’t understand it, why all the hate for the Astros? I mean their not the Yankees or anything, they didn’t kick a puppy or take candy from a baby. They were just trying to get an edge in a sport where everyone is trying to get an edge. Remember hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. In 2022 the average Major League hitter failed 75 time out of 100 at bats and the best hitter of all time, Ted Williams, failed 60 times out of a hundred. With those odds, and the difference between a Major League salary and a Minor League salary can you really blame anyone for trying to get whatever edge they can?
Please, from now on just remember to cut everyone a little slack. Actually that works in life as well as sports. I hope you have enjoyed my first missive in a long time. I’m going to be back in the groove at least until spring If you wish to comment, share or subscribe, please click one of the buttons below.
I was almost agreeing with you but then you had to include the Yankee cheap shot. "Yankees bought their way to a championship" is equivalent to "Astros cheated their way to a championship." Both are the irrational rantings of sports fans (among whom I include myself but to a lesser degree than, say, 50 years ago.).