Astros, Take Your Base and Be Quiet, Please
Every single player that participated in this cheating scandal should’ve been immediately banned from baseball for a length of time equal to how long the team participated in the cheating practices.
Since no Astros player has received a single punishment, listening to them complain about literally anything right now is incredibly difficult (yes, we’re looking at you, Carlos Correa).
Collectively, they don’t have a single leg to stand on. They should be the quietest team in baseball this year. Their pre- and post-game press conferences should be short, and contrition should be their guiding light all season long. Your coach shouldn’t be asked for protection from retaliation. That should be the last thing on his and your mind.
When you’ve cheated your way into a World Series championship win — the rings, the accolades, your whole team now etched on the trophy for time eternal, and all of the trappings that come with the title — you’re gonna get plunked. You’re going to get hit in record-setting numbers, in my estimate, whether opposing teams have been forewarned by the league office or not.
And you should. Honestly, at least one Astros player should be hit in every single game this season (at least until the All-star break, or until every team has faced them, whichever comes last). Especially since there hasn’t been any player punishment thus far.
One of the beautiful things about baseball has always been its ability to be self-policed by the players, on the field. And getting hit by a pitch is the most common punishment for a crime. Come into second with your spikes up? You’re wearing a pitch in your next at-bat. Showing up the pitcher by lingering too long watching your home run leave the park? Again, here’s a curveball in your ribs. Play the game with the respect it deserves, and you’ll be fine.
But we’re not talking about small transgressions here. What the Astros did will likely prove to be the second-largest scandal in the sport’s history, sitting only behind the infamous Black Sox Scandal wherein Shoeless Joe’s Chicago White Sox took money from bookies and threw the 1919 World Series (immortalized in “Eight Men Out”). After the 1920 season, MLB’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, saw fit to ban each of the participating players from baseball for life (sorry Joe, you shouldn’t have been banned)!
No more Major League Baseball for them. No more Minor League Baseball for them. Banned, for life. The fact that the Astros players have thus far received zero punishment for their egregious offenses is stunning. The team should have its title stripped, and every single player on that team should receive at least the aforementioned ban.
Since there hasn’t been a punishment of any kind, it means only one thing: baseball players need to police this themselves, on the field.
For anyone who wants to argue that using steroids is a bigger crime, well, simply put, you’re wrong.
Steroids don’t make you that much of a better hitter. Sure, a few more balls that would’ve been flyouts turn into home runs, and we’ll add a few grounders and line drives that will find their way away from outstretched gloves because they were hit harder. Maybe, at best, you’re adding 10 home runs to your total and 10–15 points to your batting average across the season. But you still have to hit the ball, and steroids don’t make that physical feat any less difficult. Still illegal. Hello, asterisks.
Using technology to steal signs so your team knows what pitches are coming, however, removes the fairness and integrity between you and the pitcher standing 60'6" away. Imagine two men facing off in a duel and one of them has his gun in hand, while the other’s weapon has to be retrieved from his holster. Does it mean that one guy will win every single time? No. But it definitely improves his odds.
Let’s take it from the analysts themselves. Michael Hiltz wrote in the LA Times:
“They found that, among other things, the Astros showed a huge improvement in avoiding strikeouts — going from the fourth-worst strikeout rate in the major leagues in 2016, to the best in baseball the following year. ‘They struck out so much less, it’s fair to use the word ‘historic’ to describe it,’ reported Jayson Stark and Eno Sarris in the Athletic.”
While there is an argument to be made that it all balanced out in the end, and plenty of people have made that argument, the end isn’t as important as the means here. More importantly, the Astros shouldn’t keep including that in their defenses. It rings hollow, remorseless, and just ratchets up the anger of the entire fraternity of baseball, present and past members included.
But I digress. Let’s get back to the matter at hand: if MLB’s spineless commissioner isn’t going to properly adjudicate the matter, the players must. No one should be beaned (that means a pitcher hitting someone in the head, for the uninitiated), but every single Astros player who was part of the scandal needs to wear their fair share of pitches this season. They are all dirty players right now, every single one of them; either you participated or you kept your mouth shut. And there’s only one way to shake this kinda dirt off…
If I’m Dusty Baker or one of the team leaders, this is the direction I’m giving: “We are going to get hit a lot this year. Take your base, keep your mouths shut, and keep it moving. We deserve every single one of them. On the positive side, the team’s OBP (on-base percentage) should go up because of how many times we’re gonna get hit. That means more runs which likely means more wins.” All without a single trashcan bang.
The way that Alex Bregman handled things a couple of weeks ago was perfect. When asked by a reporter about getting hit by a pitch in one of his first Spring Training at-bats, he simply replied, “It was a splitter,” Bregman said. “It just got away from him.” And just like that, he wore the pitch and took his punishment.
Because guess what, whether the pitch “got away from” the pitcher or not, it doesn’t matter. Karma put that ball on Bregman’s back.
Let’s be completely clear and reiterate another important piece to this: no one, and I mean no one, should be throwing at anyone’s head or trying to injure another player. If it seems intentional that an Astros player gets beaned, they are well within their right to empty their bench and bullpen and draw the line in the clay. Deserving punishment or not, you can’t risk great and/or permanent injury to anyone by throwing up around their head or neck.
As long as opposing pitchers aren’t doing that, the Astros need to be thankful all they’re getting for punishment is a baseball in between their numbers.
