It’s now clear that Major League Baseball hasn’t punished the Houston Astros enough for their 2017 sign-stealing violations. Time to remove their World Champion title.
At last week’s press conference, players remaining from the tainted 2017 squad offered nothing but meager remorse, simply mouthing “regrets” they didn’t do more to stop it.
And team owner Jim Crane had the nerve to insist that the sign-stealing scheme had nothing to do with winning the World Series that year, claiming that the cheating “didn’t impact the game” (before denying his denial).
In fact, stats show the sign-stealing massively and regularly boosted the ’Stros at the plate. There’s an excellent chance they wouldn’t have even made it to the Series without the scam.
Yet they can barely pretend to be sorry. As The Post’s Joel Sherman noted, “Like all scoundrels, it took being caught to offer those sentiments.” And such “pre-rehearsed soulless responses make it hard to forgive.”
Only former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers and three other 2017 members of the organization have shown true honor here, by confessing last November to The Athletic.
Yet the MLB lords have disciplined no players over the scheme. Fine, Astros management canned GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch, while the Mets dropped Carlos Beltrán and the Red Sox parted ways with Alex Cora — both of whom were deeply involved in the 2017 cheating.
It’s not enough. Ex-Yankee David Wells spoke for many fans when he tweeted, “That’s not the way to win a Division or a Championship. The Players should be Banned for life like Pete Rose. If they got immunity then Pete Rose and the Black Sox should too. I think the commissioner should rethink.”
“We don’t want to be remembered as a team that cheated to get a championship,” said Astros infielder Carlos Correa. Too late, pal.
Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN on Sunday that while he understands fans think the Astros weren’t punished enough, “The idea of an asterisk or asking for a piece of metal back seems like a futile act.”
Hardly! It will matter greatly to Series MVP George Springer, league MVP José Altuve and the team overall if the tainted accolades are taken away.
And if MLB’s investigations show that Cora instituted the same cheating system in Boston in 2018, that Sox squad should suffer the same.
