Monday, January 20, 2020

COMMENTARY: MLB Controversy Provides A Valuable Lesson For NASCAR


Major League Baseball finds itself earlobe-deep in controversy this week, after it was revealed that the Houston Astros used technology to steal signs from opposing teams during their 2017 World Series championship season, as well as in 2018.

The controversy first came to light in November of last year, when former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers told reporters Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drelich of The Athletic that the team had utilized a center field video camera to steal opposing teams' signs and communicate pitches to batters. Following an MLB investigation, the Astros were fined $5 million and will forfeit their first and second-round draft picks in both 2020 and 2021.

General manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A. J. Hinch were suspended by MLB for the entire 2020 season, before subsequently being fired by the Astros. Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora – who helped orchestrate the sign-stealing scam while serving as bench coach for the Astros in 2017 – was also dismissed, as was newly hired New York Mets manager Carlos Beltran, who played for the Astros in 2017.

The sanctions were the most severe ever handed down to an MLB organization for in-game misconduct, and they provide a valuable lesson for other sports – like NASCAR – about the importance of safeguarding the integrity of the game.

Cheating is not unique to baseball. NASCAR has long grappled with the concept of “superior interpretation of the rules,” dating back to its moonshining roots. In the past, when faced with cheating scandals of its own, NASCAR and its fan base have often responded with little more than a wink and a shrug.

The consensus of opinion among many in this sport is that “If you’re not cheating, you’re not competing;” an attitude that has done little to aid NASCAR’s effort to be seen as a major league professional sport. In fact, NASCAR is often viewed in the stick-and-ball world as the sport where everybody cheats, and nobody cares.

The sanctioning body has taken steps recently to alter that perception. NASCAR announced a year ago that it would begin disqualifying teams found to have broken the rules, penalizing them to last place in the finishing order. Joe Gibbs Racing was the first team to feel the impact of that new attitude, when driver Erik Jones lost a fourth-place finish to a post-race Optical Scanning Station failure at Richmond Raceway in September of 2019.

The current Major League Baseball controversy provides a valuable opportunity for both NASCAR and its fans to honestly evaluate how casual observers have long viewed our game. As we look down upon MLB and the Houston Astros today – collectively shaking our heads and harrumphing in disdain – we understand at long last how the rest of the world has viewed NASCAR through its myriad rule breaking scandals.

With the benefit of a little distance, NASCAR and its fans now have a unique opportunity to see the forest, rather than just the trees. We have an opportunity to see – from a comfortable distance -- just how damaging the concept of widespread, systemic cheating can be to a sport, its teams and its players.

There is a lesson to be learned here, if we’re smart enough to learn it.

Unfortunately, the reaction of many in NASCAR Nation has been indifference.

“I don’t care about baseball,” they huff. “That has nothing to do with NASCAR.”

Well, it has everything to do with NASCAR.

Baseball’s current state of upheaval is no different than what NASCAR went through in the aftermath of the 2013 Michael Waltrip Racing “Itchy Arm” scandal, when drivers Clint Bowyer, Brian Vickers and others intentionally manipulated the outcome of the regular-season finale at Richmond Raceway, in order to allow teammate Martin Truex, Jr., to advance to the playoffs.

Like the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, what happened in NASCAR that day was a systemic, organization-wide plot to manipulate the outcome of a major sporting event. And like the current MLB controversy, the events of September 7, 2013 cast a shadow over our sport that may never completely dissipate.

For those among us who are not NASCAR myopic -- who recognize and understand that there are other sports out there that do not involve screaming engines and squealing tires – how has your opinion of Major League Baseball changed in the last few weeks?

Has this latest controversy – combined with the still-lingering taint of the Steroid Scandal – sullied the sport in your eyes? Does the realization that cheating in Major League Baseball is widespread and largely condoned make you less of a fan? And does the knowledge that the Houston Astros (quite literally) stole the 2017 World Series title make you think less of them as an organization?

Of course it does. As it should.

And that’s why NASCAR needs to watch, listen and learn from what Major League Baseball is going through right now.

Integrity matters.

Reputation counts.

And once it’s gone, it’s difficult to regain.






No comments:

Post a Comment