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.
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