Houston fans have shown up consistently, and general manager James Click has guided the team to the World Series in his first two full seasons on the job. Manager Dusty Baker is one of the most engaging personalities in the game and could win his first World Series as a manager at age 73. Justin Verlander had a remarkable comeback season, Alvarez is an absolute beast and Pena has had an October to remember. There’s a sense that justice was not served by Manfred’s punishment. That’s why you still see signs in the bleachers and hear boos in nearly every road city the Astros visit. And, like it or not, he paid the ultimate price with a career death sentence.Īnd the Astros were docked some draft picks? No one ever accused Pete Rose of purposefully losing as manager of the Reds, but his gambling habit threatened our trust in the honest outcome of games. What they did was damage the game’s integrity, and there’s not a greater crime in sports. The Astros had a lot of great players in 2017 and might have won the World Series even without cheating. Okay, so maybe that’s overstating things. (The team later fired both of them.) The Astros also were fined $5 million, which works out to about 2.5 percent of one year’s payroll.Īnd all they did was steal a World Series. The Astros were dinged a handful of draft picks, and lost their manager and general manager to one-year suspensions. Personally, I think Major League Baseball is to blame.Ĭommissioner Rob Manfred’s nothing-to-see here punishment of the Astros in the spring of 2020 was neither satisfying, nor remotely adequate considering the gravity of the offense. So, why is that? Considering 21 of the 26 Astros in the American League Championship Series had nothing to do with the sign-stealing plot, why does America still hold a grudge?
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February 2023
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