Letters: Astros' cheating scandal has real staying power

Feb. 21, 2020 1:59 PM PT

For Rob Manfred to attempt to throw a cheap steak on the grievous black eye the Astros’ cheating has imposed upon our beloved baseball, is in my opinion to deliver a greater black eye on the national pastime than the cheating itself. A huge part of his job is to protect the game from evildoers, not provide shelter for them. Someone is going to have to be the fall guy here, and it just might end up being Rob Manfred.

Dan Jensen
San Clemente
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So Rob Manfred wanted “to avoid confrontation” with the players union. Isn’t that his job? Imagine a police officer, dispatched to a bank robbery, replies “I’m not going, I want to avoid confrontation.”
Mr. Manfred, do your job.

Joe Zingg
Rancho Mirage

The mechanics of the Astros’ sign stealing was best communicated to us fans through the Andre Ethier article. It was a step-by-step process and involvement of what analytics can accomplish. Ethier’s interview should be distributed to every person who has read about the sign stealing.

Bill Koury
La Cañada

Very impressive interview with Carlos Correa, regarding his teammates of the 2017 Houston Asterisks. Carlos, you can defend Jose Altuve and the rest of the Cheaters all you want. You can criticize Cody Bellinger for “not having his facts straight.” At the end of the day, all that matters is that the 2017 Houston Astros will forever be known as the team that cheated their way to a World Series championship and every other excuse or weak apology anyone connected with the organization gives will fall on deaf ears.

If you think I’m wrong, then just wait until you and your cohorts play your games on the road this year. Let’s see how forgiving the New York Yankee fans are. And rest of the league.

Steve Horvitz
Los Angeles

When Lance Armstrong was caught cheating in the Tour de France, he was stripped of his titles and banned from all competitive bicycling for life. But Major League Baseball isn’t run by an international organization whose primary interest is their sport. MLB is run mostly by men who live in mansions and fly around in private jets, and the teams are just status symbols for them. They know that laws and taxes and rules are for little people. So they probably didn’t even think about the ramifications of just voting among themselves to decide how to brush aside the Astros’ stolen championship.

It’s time for MLB to correct their mistake and act like a real sport instead of an entertainment franchise. Take away the trophy, ban the perpetrators for life, levy a crippling penalty against the Astros that delegates them to last place for years to come, and humiliate owner Jim Crane. Otherwise, we should expect cheating to increase rather than decrease.

Scott Peer
Glendale

From everything I have heard or read about Dusty Baker, he is an excellent baseball man, and a decent and honorable person. I believe he is financially secure from the money he’s earned from baseball.
What I do not understand is why Mr. Baker would want to associate himself with a bunch of cheaters who have sullied the reputation of the game he loves, and why he must sometimes speak for and defend them. By doing so it appears he has sullied his own reputation.

Peter R. Pancione
Thousand Oaks

I saw most of the recorded interview Rob Manfred did with Karl Ravech, and he looked very uncomfortable, very nervous and edgy. There was a pool of sweat on his upper lip, and his answers were sweaty with evasion, deception and avoidance. He acknowledged at the end that it would be difficult and take time to win back the faith of many baseball fans, but it’s clear that he had no desire to punish all the wrongdoers on the Astros, specifically the players who participated. He’s only concerned with preserving what’s still viable in the MLB brand.

Manfred is a corporate coward with no integrity, referring to the World Series trophy as a “piece of metal” as if to minimize its significance and downplay the call for the trophy to be taken back from the cheating Astros. I don’t think MLB did anything close to a thorough investigation, afraid of what they’d find if they dug any deeper. Well, shame on him and shame on the Astros who still talk as if they don’t feel the least bit remorseful or chastened.

TR Jahns
Hemet

Rob Manfred claims that he cannot revoke the 2017 World Series championship from the Houston Astros because doing so would be “unprecedented.”

Well, the Astros’ systemic, team-wide cheating in 2017 is itself unprecedented and, therefore, requires an unprecedented response! I mean, really: How hard is this to understand?

The taint of 2017 now extends to the commissioner and the league itself. Until Manfred formally revokes the Astros’ title, this scandal will never end, and millions of fans like myself will feel that MLB is about as legitimate as the WWE.

Michael Lee Manous
Upland

Manfred, man: Blinded by what’s right.

Steve Ross
Beverly Hills

If only Bob Gibson or Don Drysdale were still around to really “buzz” some of these Astros.

Richard Katz
Los Angeles

A lot of questions are being asked about the Astros’ cheating scandal, but here’s the obvious one we haven’t heard. Why did the Astros even feel it necessary to steal signs to win the World Series? They had a very talented team in 2017, so wouldn’t just one person in the organization have stepped up and asked, “Why are we doing this, when we can beat the Dodgers straight up?”

Also, how smart would you have to be to realize that between the players, coaches, management, ownership and other employees involved in this scam, that at least one person would one day leave the organization and tell someone, who then tells someone else. In the era of social media the Astros are not only guilty of cheating but of also being very dumb!

Mike Duchowny
Woodland Hills

I think it’s funny that Cody Bellinger of all people should be commenting on the Astros. Yes, they stole signs, but Bellinger struck out like, what, 47 times in that series? I could see comments coming from other Dodger players, but not “Mr. Whiff.”

Bob Fowler
Point Blank, Texas

If you print one more story about Houston cheating, I am going to spit (as in spitball ). There has been cheating in baseball for decades. There was corking the bat, spitballs, grease balls, Vaseline balls, baseball tampering, steroids, gambling and more that don’t come to mind right now.

The Dodgers need to quit crying, suck it up, play good clean ball and legitimately win a championship. And don’t encourage sliding illegally into second base as they did with Chase Utley a few years back.

Eric Saudi
Altadena

I will not feel bad for the Astros players being announced at the All-Star game this summer. The only thing sweeter will be when the commissioner hands that “piece of metal” to Justin Turner in the fall.

Fred Valko
Big Bear Lake

Work of Arte

Thank you, Dylan Hernandez, for shedding some light on Arte Moreno’s astoundingly horrific decision to call of the trade with the Dodgers.

So Mr. Moreno suggests the Angels might outslug their opponents. I would suggest that would have been much more likely with Pederson joining Trout and Rendon in the top of the lineup as those three players combined for more than a hundred home runs last season.

The need to outslug opponents would also have decreased with the addition of Stripling. Hernandez is right on when he says this is not the first time Moreno’s impulses have hurt the Angels and that that he isn’t going anywhere. Unfortunately neither is his horrendous meddling.

Ron Reeve
Glendora

For all the terrible owners in sports, for some reason Arte Moreno gets a pass. He is never mentioned in same breath as Daniel Snyder of the Redskins, James Dolan of the Knicks or former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt. As bad a rep as those owners have, Arte Moreno is arguably the worst. In the last 11 years, the team has gone to one postseason appearance. He choked the team with the ridiculous signings of Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton. His interference in the team’s best interests even makes Jerry Jones blush.

The latest deal or lack thereof, the canceled trade of Joc Pederson and Ross Stripling, shines a very bright light on how incompetent he is. The Dodgers gave him an early Christmas gift and he decided his team and fans were not worthy of it. If Dodger fans thought being run by a Parking Lot Guy was a wreck, try being run by a Billboard Guy with zero sense of reality.

Geno Apicella
Placentia

As a businessman there is no disputing how brilliant Arte Moreno is. He built a multi-billion dollar business and paid $180 million in 2003 for a team that is now worth almost $2 billion. As someone involved in player personnel moves there is no disputing how incompetent he is. Trading for Vernon Wells and signing free agents Gary Matthews, Jr and Albert Pujols were unmitigated on the field disasters (Off the field the Pujols deal was truly brilliant). But killing a trade with the Dodgers that was more one-sided than buying Manhattan for $24 was by far his biggest blunder, one that might cost the Angels a shot at making the playoffs and getting that elusive World Series title he so craves.

Erik Schuman
Fountain Valley

What a grind

After the All-Star “game”(if you can call it that) Chris Paul said it was fun but in “three, four days we’re going back to the grind.” Chris will “grind” it out to the tune of $38 million this year. Playing basketball 3-4 nights a week, staying in five-star hotels, and having every whim and need attended to by team employees. Man, how can anyone maintain a schedule like that?!

Steve Briseno
Mission Viejo

Highlight goal

I want to thank Alec Martinez for giving this lifelong Kings fan who is older than the team one of the most memorable moments in my lifetime. I will never forget that moment in 2014 when I got to see a Hispanic hockey player, by the last name of Martinez, no less, score the winning goal in overtime to win the Stanley Cup. Thank you for also being a part of the 2012 Kings team to win the first Stanley Cup in team history, as well. I cried both times. You will forever be a part of Los Angeles lore.

Vincent Martinez
South Pasadena

A lob to Rob

The Lakers campaign is well on its way,
And it looks like a picture-book season,
Isn’t it time for some to recant,
And acknowledge Pelinka’s a reason?

Howard Friedman
Downey

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