Rant 2,504: The Cheater

"Cheaters never prosper."

We have all heard that phrase used during our lives, and it came to the fore yesterday on a national stage, where Major League Baseball came down hard on the Houston Astros for cheating during the 2017 and 2018 seasons, and in particular during the American League Championship games against the New York Yankees.

The Astros won the World Series that year, beating the Yankees four games to three, and then topping the Los Angeles Dodgers for the championship.

Those wins cannot be taken away from the Astros, but they completely lost their dignity yesterday, when MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred threw the book at them.

Due to electronic cheating employed by the Astros during those games and in 2018--and perhaps continued use of this scheme for an undetermined amount of time--he suspended manager A.J Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow for the 2020 season, fined the team $5 million, and perhaps most importantly, forfeited their nest two first and second round draft picks in the amateur draft.

The Astros subsequently fired Hinch and Luhnow, so the 2019 American League champions are without a manager and GM less than a month before pitchers and catchers report to Florida for sprimng training.

The Astros' bench coach at the time, current Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora, awaits his fate, and it can't be a good one, based on what happened to Hinch.

No players were fined or suspended in the cheating scandal, but this does not let the supposed ringleader of this cheating, Carlos Beltran, completely off the hook. He is mentioned in the report, and you can just bet that Beltran, with his squeaky clean image, has taken a great hit to his Hall of Fame resume. Beltran, the current manager of the New York Mets, will be watched and scrutinized during his first manager stint, you can be sure of that.

What happened is that the Astros used the current technology to bolster their attack against the Yankees and other teams that they played. They used the replay room--which is situated right outside the dugout--to steal signs with a misplaced centerfield camera. Those signs were than directed to the dugout, where they were relayed to the batter by the banging of trash cans.

Hinch said he tried to stop the practice, but he let it go too long without completely getting rid of it. Luhnow said he knew nothing about it.

Whatever the case, the statistics from the 2017 American League Championship series, and the testimony of several players who during the season were affected by the sign stealing, sealed the Astros' fate.

During the series, the Astros won all their games at home, but lost all their games at Yankee Stadium. The statistics are all so lopsided, which can happen naturally, but here, in the series that sends the winner to the World Series, they were so lopsided that people had to question them.

And they continued to employ this cheating during the 2018 season, and perhaps even into 2019, when Jose Altuve hit Aroldis Chapman's first pitch into the seats for a home run, propelling the Astros into the 2019 World Series.

But 2019 isn't mentioned in the report, but who knows if the Astros did or did not emplly these techniques during that season too.

This isn't the first cheating scandal in baseball--the PED scandal, and later, the Red Sox were accused of using Apple watches to transmit signs, and the Yankees were accused of using their bullpen phone in an illegal way--and cheating does happen throughout sports, whether it is the New England Patriots' past "Spygate" offenses or NBA teams jockeying for better draft position by not playing their best players.

And in baseball, sign stealing is LEGAL, as long as it occurs using natural means, such as using the human eye to pick up what type of pitch is being thrown.

But using the current technology to steal sings is forbidden, and you can bet that MLB will certainly establish new rules--and new penalties--related to the use of current and future technology to steal signs.

And you just know that Cora, and to a certain extent Beltran, are quaking in their boots, wondering what their fates will be.

Look, with or without sign stealing, the Astros are one of the top teams in not just MLB but in sports, resurrecting themselves from one of the worst teams in the sport to one of the top teams through savvy drafting, a sterling minor league system, and crafty trades.

But cheating to gain advantage over opponents is not the icing on the cake for them.

Nobody can take away their 2017 World Series win, nor their recent successes during the season and into the playoffs.

But all of that is now tainted, much like certain players' statistics were forever tainted by the PED scandal.

The years have been kind to the PED players, but I don't know if they will be so kind for the Houston Astros. Everything they have done and will do in the future will be highly scrutinized, and until the stigma of working around the rules and cheating is completely erased, everyting and anything they do will be subject to extra scrutiny.

It is a sad day for MLB, but I am sure with spring training just around the corner, every team will now have to investigate whatever practices they use to try to gain an advantage, and weed out anything that might be considered illegal, so that the integrity of the National Pastime does not waver ever again from such a scandal.