You’ve heard about the scandal rocking Major League Baseball? According to NBC Sports, “the Astros stole signs electronically during the 2017 World Series, relaying the opposing catcher’s signs from a center field camera to a TV in the tunnel between the dugout and clubhouse. Someone would then drum on a trash can (or not) to alert the hitter as to what pitch is being thrown.”
The losing team in the World Series that year, the Dodgers, are understandably miffed. So are other teams that played the Houston Astros in big games.
A commentator on ESPN said the scandal put a stain on the sport. Further exacerbating the situation, some Astros players, and a team executive, apparently attempted to gloss over the scandal.
It’ll probably take lots of soap and scrubbing to remove the stain and cleanse the game of baseball’s image.
After reading articles over the Presidents’ Day weekend, one article emphasizing the need to teach “remedial civics,” so little things like the rule of law, separation of powers and our democracy won’t be glossed over, and reading several articles about the current president’s “authoritarian ways,” you start thinking:
We’re going to need lots of soap, to scrub a lot more than baseball.
Restoring trust is going to be a big challenge for the Astros and maybe Major League Baseball, as well. The same goes for politics, because what’s the difference between voter suppression, gerrymandering and other political tactics designed to influence the outcome of elections, and pro sports shenanigans that influence the outcome of sports competition? Whatever happened to winning fair and square?
You’ve probably heard people say; Oh, it’s just something that’s done, sometimes. No biggie! Nothing to it! Roll out the mea culpas. It’ll blow over.
But here’s hoping BS like that gets old after a while. Because at the end of the day, as they say, we’ve got to clean things up before we run out of soap; don’t you think?
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