BALTIMORE — Let’s establish, first of all, that this is both good for baseball and hilarious at a time when our country could benefit from some frivolity.

But that doesn’t preclude consequences.

Absolutely, the Red Sox should be penalized once Major League Baseball officially busts them for using an Apple Watch to steal signals from the Yankees. How about a $500,000 fine and the forfeiture of a 10th-round draft pick?

“You’ve got somebody who is inside looking at the signs and relaying it to somebody through an electronic device, that’s a tough one to swallow right there,” Todd Frazier said Tuesday before the Yankees and Orioles were scheduled to continue their series at Orioles Park at Camden Yards.

As The New York Times first reported, the Red Sox deciphered signals from opposing catchers (including the Yankees during their Aug. 18-20 visit to Fenway Park) via their video-replay staff, who then texted the information to a trainer on the bench, who passed the information along to players. Whew! That is some high-tech, high-speed espionage. How about casting Seth “Scott Evil” Green to play Dustin Pedroia in the eventual movie?

Yes, this is fun stuff. Spare me your outrage. Sign-stealing falls under the same umbrella as scuffing baseballs and using illegal performance-enhancing drugs: Teams and players operate and sell tickets under the good-faith premise that they are trying their hardest to win ballgames, and these actions are conducted in an attempt to win ballgames.

As Joe Girardi said, regarding sign-stealing in general, “I think, as a team, that everyone tries to do something.” When asked whether the Yankees try, their manager smiled slightly and said, “You can assume what you want.”

So you don’t get angry when someone crosses the line into electronic aids. You do, however, take action when the perpetrator is sloppy enough to get nabbed. While commissioner Rob Manfred, coincidentally visiting Fenway Park on Tuesday, indicated that MLB was still investigating both the Yankees’ allegations against the Red Sox and the Red Sox’s countercharge the Yankees use a camera from their YES Network to swipe opponents’ signs, multiple sources said that MLB was further down the road on the Yankees’ complaint and believed that the Red Sox had very likely violated the league’s stated protocol on this matter.

The Yankees firmly denied the Red Sox’s allegations against them, whereas the Red Sox did no such thing about the charges against them, and Manfred pointed out that the Red Sox “have been 100 percent fully cooperative with us” and “if it happened, it no longer is happening.”

So it’s just a matter of vetting Boston’s complaint against the Yankees before rendering a verdict, and hey, if the Yankees are guilty, slap them with a penalty, too. I’m betting the Yankees get cleared, though.

Manfred, asked how he determines a penalty, said, “I think you need to think about deterrence. I think you need to think about how the violation has affected the play on the field, and I think you need to think about how it’s affected the perception of the game publicly.”

Deterrence is never bad. Girardi said he believes the impact of this practice “can be substantial,” and I’ll buy that, based on what Bobby Thomson’s 1951 New York Giants accomplished with their legendary usage of buzzers and a telescope to upend Ralph Branca’s Brooklyn Dodgers.

The perception of the game is only helped, however. This isn’t game-fixing, or owners (like Hall of Famer Bud Selig) colluding to keep salaries down and handing their customers a diminished product in the process. Folks love “Spy vs. Spy” tales, whether it’s the Yankees against the Apple Watch or Alex Rodriguez or Ryan Braun going at it with MLB over steroid charges.

When the Cardinals were found guilty of breaking into the Astros’ proprietary software, Manfred made St. Louis forfeit its top two draft picks and pay the Astros $2 million.

This transgression is nowhere as serious. The public embarrassment, fine and lost draft pick should send the proper message:

We know you won’t stop trying this stuff. Just don’t get caught next time!