Reticence will not end this sign-stealing scandal – it will only make it worse

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When Major League Baseball decided it had to be seen doing something about a sign-stealing scandal, they were careful about a few things.

First, that the punishment be announced in the dead zone between the winter meetings and the start of spring training. Fires need oxygen and, in sports, that fuel is provided by player availability. When they’re all off on vacation, controversies tend to gutter.

Second, that no truly big names were on the hit list. Instead, it was the coaches and general managers who got it in the head. And, with all due respect, no one cares about coaches and GMs.

Third, that everyone had their public talking points down. In one instance, Houston’s Alex Bregman was forced from hiding during a promotional event. When asked several times about sign stealing, he repeated some version of, “The commissioner did a report, the Astros made their decision …” like a mantra.

You could see the gears grinding as Bregman struggled to remember the entire spiel.

That’s the sports PR handbook on such things – act quickly, appear resolute, deflect shamelessly, pivot away and, finally, focus on bright, shiny objects off in the distance.

It’s not working in this instance.

Almost immediately, the scandal began to metastasize. It may not have been limited to trashcan Morse code. Internet detectives turned up evidence that suggested the Astros’ plan was far more sophisticated – involving buzzers hidden under uniforms.

(Bregman broke protocol just long enough to call that idea “stupid” – which is not the same thing as saying it didn’t happen.)

It began leaking into other clubhouses. Red Sox manager Alex Cora was fired before an investigation into a similar setup in Boston has wrapped up. Geez, I mean, do you think they might’ve done it?

Carlos Beltran lost his Mets managing job before he’d actually managed the Mets. Since Beltran’s sins were committed back in his playing days, it focused attention on the fact that none of the current Astros faces similar censure.

And baseball certainly did not reckon on the complete breakdown of the Jockstrap Code that forbids pros from talking ill of anyone in the brotherhood.

Players on other teams – pitchers in particular – rushed in to kick the Astros while they were down. Social media free them of the dirty business of calling a reporter in order to do the knifing. Everyone has their own knife now.

So what was meant to be a two- or three-day story is still spinning out after more than a week, with no end in sight.

Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution calling on MLB to strip Houston and Boston of their recent titles and award them instead to their common World Series opponent, the L.A. Dodgers.

This is when you know you’ve fallen a long way – when politicians feel they’ve taken the moral high ground from you.

Eventually, someone figured out what bush MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was hiding under and flushed him out with a sharp stick.

Manfred – let’s be charitable about this – is not much of a communicator.

He is unsuited to playing the role of Fyodor Dostoevsky in what has become a philosophical consideration of crime and punishment.

Asked a direct question in a Wednesday interview – should MLB strip the Astros and Red Sox of their most recent world titles – Manfred retreated into the bafflegab of the boardroom.

“I think there’s a long tradition in baseball of not trying to change what happened,” he said, waving away the prospect.

Isn’t there a long tradition of that in all aspects of human life? Owing to the fact that the laws of physics prohibit time travel?

A good old-fashioned humiliation would not change what happened. Nobody’s able to give the Dodgers (or whoever else it might have been) back their moment. But it’s a start.

If ‘changing what happened’ was the bar, the concept of restorative justice – or justice, plain and simple – could not exist.

Manfred also had some thoughts on that.

“I think the answer from our perspective is to be transparent about what the investigation shows and let our fans make their own decision about what happened.”

(In lieu of words here, instead picture me pushing my glasses up onto my forehead and massaging the bridge of my nose for six or seven hours.)

No. That is ridiculous.

Imagine if the legal system worked the way Manfred is proposing baseball’s investigative arm should.

Judge: “Therefore, I find you guilty and sentence you to …” – turns to gallery – “… now before I impose a penalty, I’d just like to make it clear that you folks shouldn’t necessarily mind me. You all should make your own decision about what happened.”

If I’m getting Manfred’s gist here, he is suggesting that your disapproval (if indeed you disapprove) is punishment enough.

That is a cynical abrogation of Manfred’s responsibility as commissioner, and one that conveniently saves him the trouble of upsetting any of his bosses (i.e. the owners).

We know what happened. The Astros cheated. How ambitiously they cheated is still an open question, and one baseball evidently does not want to grapple with.

But that reticence will not end this. It will make it worse.

Pitchers and catchers reporting is less than three weeks away. MLB still hasn’t announced the Red Sox penalty. Its current plan – barricade the front door and wait until it gets quiet outside – looks dumber by the day. Whenever that report comes out, it will launch a new wave of recriminations.

In the interim everyone’s wondering the same thing – who else was in on this? How much bigger does this get? Because you know what they say about three people keeping a secret – it’s only possible if two of them are dead.

The Astros ran this scam for years. Do not tell me it didn’t get out. Do not tell me other teams did not enact counter measures. And what’s the most effective defence? Offence.

This doesn’t end here. Manfred and MLB get to decide only one thing going forward – whether they want to do this short and painful, or longer and much more painful.