The Forgotten Scandal of the 2018 Boston Red Sox
When baseball fans hear the word “cheating”, their mind goes to the 2017 World Series-winning Astros cheating scandal where they stole signs by banging trash cans to determine what pitch was coming.
But everyone seems to forget about the 2018 Boston Red Sox and their cheating scandal, which eventually led to a World Series championship.
The 2018 Boston Red Sox were a magical team to watch. Everyone on that team contributed in one way or another, especially during the postseason. I remember watching the World Series and seeing Mookie Betts and J.D Martinez and being in awe of how they played the game. Those two players made this team very special to me.
Mookie Betts and J.D Martinez were both key players for the 2018 Red Sox with the former winning AL MVP that season and the latter winning a Silver Slugger Award.
I can go on and on about how every player on this team from the leadoff hitter Mookie Betts to the number 9 hitter Jackie Bradley Jr. contributed during their 2018 World Series run.
But was the championship legitimate?
After word got out in 2020 that the Houston Astros cheated during their legacy run to the World Series in 2017, many fans and players wondered if the Astros were the only team involved in this sign-stealing scandal.
On April 22nd, 2020, it was announced that the Red Sox were stealing signs using its video replay monitor. By stealing these signs, the players knew what pitches were coming, which would make it easier to get on base.
The blame was put on the replay room operator J.T. Watkins. He was then suspended without pay for the shortened 2020 MLB season.
Red Sox Manager Alex Cora was also suspended without pay for the rest of the 2020 season for his contributions to the Astros cheating scandal in 2017, where he was the bench coach for that team.
That made me and probably many other fans wonder —
Did Cora bring the cheating strategies he learned in Houston to Boston the following season?
And the answer is yes.
An anonymous player on the Red Sox threw Cora under the bus by saying that Cora used to brag about stealing signs for his team. The anonymous player said, “He said that when they played the Dodgers, ‘we already knew what everyone was throwing before we even got on base. We didn’t have to get on base.’ And everyone was like, ‘What the hell does that mean?’”
Since the Red Sox were cheating before Cora became the manager, he was brought back as the manager once his suspension was lifted. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about this scandal and I still don’t understand how.
The Red Sox video replay coordinator at the time, J.T. Watkins was recently hired by the Los Angeles Dodgers to be their video replay coordinator, which raised some eyebrows around the league.
Why would the Dodgers hire someone who was the centerpiece of a cheating scandal?
The fact that he was suspended for a season made this even more relevant. Los Angeles Times reporter Dylan Hernandez spoke to Mookie Betts, a member of the 2018 Boston Red Sox who is now on the Dodgers, about the sign-stealing scandal and if they used live video to cheat in 2018.
Mookie Betts’ answer was “Yeah, everybody was”. He also resented the idea that stealing signs was the reason they won the championship. “No! This is what I’m trying to say. People are trying to make it like we’re cheating. Give us credit,” Betts said. “We had a good team. Give us some credit. We had Cy Young winners. We had MVPs. We had Gold Glove winners. We had Silver Sluggers. We had all that. Take that into account.”
Betts also said that this scheme was not used all the time and was not used during the World Series.
Is this championship legitimate? I think it is. Betts has a point when saying that the team was special. They had multiple awards winners that year. It’s not like they had a bunch of bums and cheated their way to a championship. They had a great foundation.
I understand why the Astros’ cheating scandal is talked about more than the Red Sox cheating scandal. But it doesn’t make it right that one can disappear from existence like this one did.
