The Astros aren't the 1919 Reds, they're the Black Sox

Major League Baseball has lost all credibility.

Many are applauding MLB for its “harsh” judgment in suspending the Houston Astros’ general manager and manager for a year, and praising the Astros’ owner for firing them.

Fine.

But the Astros are still being recognized as the 2017 World Series champions. This one fact renders any other censure or punishment virtually meaningless.

Think the New England Patriots spying on opponents’ practices is bad? This makes the Patriots’ transgressions look like stealing candy from a drugstore, compared to a bank heist. This didn’t happen in practice; it happened in an actual game.

Here’s what the Astros did to their opponents: They used the centerfield camera to steal the catcher’s signs to the pitcher, which indicate what pitch is coming next. Then, they relayed that information to their batters, who knew what pitches to expect.

This is like using a hidden camera to see another player’s cards in a poker game. Try that at a casino and you’ll get banned for life. If you’d have tried it in the Old West, it would have gotten you a gunfight at high noon.

But MLB won’t allow the Dodgers to even make a statement about it. It’s issued a gag order against the team, forbidding it from even commenting.

Bogus argument

In light of all this, it’s a travesty that the Astros get to keep calling themselves “world champions.” But almost as offensive is the rationale being used to justify it: a supposed precedent set in the 1919 Black Sox scandal, in which the heavily favored Chicago White Sox threw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds – intentionally playing poorly in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate.

Bob Costas relayed this argument when he appeared on CNN: “Look, we know that the 1919 Chicago White Sox ... threw the World Series, but the record books still say that the Cincinnati Reds are the 1919 World Champions.”

But this isn’t just comparing apples to oranges, it’s declaring rotten apples to ripe oranges.

In case the distinction isn’t obvious – and it should be to a second-grader – the Cincinnati Reds did nothing wrong that would have justified stripping them of the title. The White Sox were the guilty party. They gave away the Series, and punishing the Reds for the White Sox’s transgression would have been ridiculous.

In the 2017 World Series, the exact opposite occurred. Unlike in 1919, the winning team was the guilty party. Costas is right about this much: You can’t penalize the Reds for winning when they did nothing wrong. But he’s dead wrong about comparing the Reds and the Astros, because unlike the Reds, the Astros are the ones who broke the rules.

In fact, the 1919 Reds have more in common with the 2017 Dodgers than they do with the Astros. The Reds and Dodgers both played by the rules. One team won and deserved to keep its title; the other team lost and deserved better. Much better.

MLB vs. NCAA

The Costas argument is a sham. The truth is much simpler: Major League Baseball doesn’t want to endure the embarrassment of proclaiming the Dodgers 2017 champions, or at the very least, vacating the title by stripping the Astros of their crown.

Precedent? Just look at the 2005 Orange Bowl, in which USC destroyed Oklahoma 55-19 in a battle of unbeaten teams. The NCAA subsequently found that USC had used an ineligible player, running back Reggie Bush. Bush didn’t score a single touchdown in the game and wasn’t even his team’s leading rusher. But the NCAA forced USC to vacate every game that season in which Bush played a single down – including the Orange Bowl.

If the NCAA can do it, so can Major League Baseball. But it won’t. It won’t even allow the Dodgers organization to comment on its decision not to vacate the Astros’ pseudo-championship.

Major League Baseball wants to think it’s getting tough by issuing long suspensions and a “maximum” $5 million fine (a pittance for any major professional sports team in this country).

It’s not toughness. It’s cowardice.

Unless the Astros are forced to vacate the title, anything else MLB does is just window dressing designed to make itself look good.

The Dodgers deserved better. Fans deserve better. The game deserves better. We all deserve better.

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Photo: Astros Manager A.J. Hinch, sporting cool shades in 2015, apparently thought it was also cool to use technology to steal signs. He’s been suspended and fired as a result, but the Houston Astros got to keep their title. Photo by Eric Enfermero, Creative Commons 4.0 license.