Start with Tom Boswell’s Washington Post column, published just before
yesterday’s Astros press conference:
The verdict on
Houston is already conclusive. The whole organization cheated for multiple
years, and it continued into the 2017 postseason after a specific warning to
all clubs on exactly this issue. If you don’t take a title away for that, when
will you? …
The honor of sports
championships lies in their difficulty, including all the years of near-misses,
and in the level playing fields on which they are fought. Cheaters tilt the
entire field. … There is no pity for them, nor will there ever be much.
And three more from the Post today …
Boswell again: This was the time for the Astros to own their cheating.
Maybe they missed the sign.
“Great group of guys
who didn’t receive proper guidance from their leaders,” [Astros owner Jim] Crane
said.
That’s when I knew I
shouldn’t have left that barf bag on the plane.
Time after time,
Astros players, at their lockers, repeated the same vague talking points with
the same buzz phrases. …
Dave Sheinin: Astros say they are sorry but draw a line when it comes
to questioning 2017 World Series title
[If] the Astros’
one-day apology tour, held Thursday at their spring training complex at
Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, felt unsatisfying to an outsider, it was in part
because of the invisible line the Astros refused to cross. They would admit
what they did — stealing signs from opposing catchers using a center field camera
and a video monitor — was wrong. Some would even acknowledge they gained an
advantage through it.
But they would
accept no insinuation that their 2017 championship was in any way tainted.
Adam Kilgore: Baseball wanted accountability and remorse from the
Astros. That didn’t happen.
The Houston Astros
attracted a fresh round of ire from around Major League Baseball as they opened
spring training Thursday with an attempt to apologize for the illicit
sign-stealing operation that has shaken the sport. Many rivals found their
answers and apologies lacking or misguided, particularly owner Jim Crane’s
assertion that the team’s sign-stealing did not affect outcomes and should not
taint Houston’s 2017 World Series title.
In addition to the Post’s fine work, ESPN’s Jeff Passan did a
noteworthy job of clinically dissecting Crane's performance and stacking the pieces neatly by
the side of the road. Just try to top his opening paragraph below:
Houston Astros owner
Jim Crane's latest attempt at damage control blew up in spectacular fashion
Thursday. In the span of 27 minutes at a news conference, he claimed his team's
routine cheating during its 2017 championship season didn't impact the game,
declared he shouldn't be held accountable for the organization he runs, used
commissioner Rob Manfred's report on the Astros' malfeasance as a binky and so
often repeated talking points that the Apology.exe program he tried to install
in his head looked as if it were glitching. The entire charade devolved into a
glorious conflagration, Crane's mouth a veritable fountain of lighter fluid.
And Shanna McCarriston of CBS Sports pulls together some of the better
Internet videos:
Nice job.
ReplyDeleteGood reads.
If you subscribe to The Athletic, Ken Rosenthal hit the nail on the head a couple days ago: https://theathletic.com/1618587/2020/02/19/rosenthal-for-mlb-to-move-on-astros-need-to-stop-saying-2017-title-was-legit/
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