Astrogate’s bad enough. Sending death threats to Mike Fiers or Houston Astros OF Josh Reddick allows us to ask how far below the sewer we’ve devolved.By Yours Truly
https://calltothepen.com/2020/02/22/houston-astros-death-threats-reddick-fiers-equal-degeneracy/It's bad enough that Mike Fiers has received threats of violence or even death threats for his trouble, from almost the moment he blew the whistle on Astrogate. Fiers may say bravely that he can take care of himself,
rejecting commissioner Rob Manfred's concern for his protection, but it doesn't mean the jerk brigades have the call to threaten his life even rhetorically.
But whatever the Houston Astros did to stain baseball, even they don't deserve death threats, either, such as outfielder Josh Reddick
tells reporters he's received. Not just against himself, but his children.
Reddick says one of the Twitterpated wished cancer upon his children, on a tweet in which Reddick posted a picture of his very young twins. And he adds that others among his fellow Astros have received death threats as well. The
Houston Chronicle's Chandler Rome
records that another note Reddick received said, "I will kill your entire family."
It was bad enough when Atlanta Braves outfielder Nick Markakis stepped out of his usually soft spoken character to
proclaim that "every single guy" on the Astros needs a beating. Or, when new Astros manager Dusty Baker demanded MLB to take action against retaliation toward his new charges.
But death threats? You are now entitled to ask just how far below the sewer contemporary American society really has devolved.
When ESPN writer Jeff Passan
tweeted Reddick's comments Friday afternoon, enough of the Twitterpated ran the line from mere snark to downright disgust. One supposes that somewhere in the middle sits
this tweet, replying to Passan but aimed at the Astros, "I mean, if you guys actually apologized for cheating and forfeited the title then that probably wouldn't have happened. People can be real harsh but [sic] that's also the Internet."
I'm sure what I'm about to say won't be the last word, but still---there's no debate, really, about vacating the Astros' 2017 World Series title. It won't happen. Not unless Manfred is willing to dissipate an awful lot of baseball history by vacating a few pennants and a World Series or two.
We're talking about you, 1911-14 Philadelphia Athletics. And, you, 1940 Detroit Tigers. And, you, 1948 Cleveland Indians. Not to mention you, too, 1951 New York Giants, 1961 Cincinnati Reds, and at least 2018 Boston Red Sox. It's very fair to say that the Disastros can thank God and His servant Judge Roy Hofheinz that Manfred admits he's a precedent guy and isn't inclined to break one unless it involves silly rule changes.
But the way social media becomes a
Killer Clowns from Cyberspace show that's as funny as a trap door on a Boeing 737, you shudder to imagine things like the fabled Giants-Brooklyn Dodgers rivalry taking it from the ballparks and the taverns to the Twitterverse. That era's controversies over the Communists-in-government question would have been social tea time debating compared to what Leo Durocher and his '51 cheaters would have inspired.
So the Astros weren't exactly forthcoming or straightforward with their not-quite-apologies for the Astro Intelligence Agency and the mischief it caused? As Felix Unger loved to say in
The Odd Couple, let it be on
their heads. They have to live with the negative image it casts further upon them than the AIA does. They have to live with having further poisoned baseball's integrity.
Yes, they carried sign-stealing from simple on-field gamesmanship to elaborate off-field-based electronic cheating. Yes, that cheating stacked the deck against opponents who had to add even further to their mental game burdens against them if those opponents actually did have a clear line that they were up to something.
But even they don't deserve death wishes or death threats upon their lives or those of their children. It's neither funny nor merely foolish to wish death upon a player or cancer upon a player's children. "Decadent" and "degenerate" don't begin to describe it accurately.
Threatening Josh Reddick's children, or threatening him and his teammates, is bad enough if it's coming from other than Astro fans. No fans in baseball are more heartsick over this cheating scandal than Astro fans, unless they're Red Sox fans heartsick over the Red Sox Replay Room Reconnaissance Ring upon which Manfred has yet to pass judgment and sentence. Do you really want to know if even one Astro fan wished death to Reddick or his mates or cancer upon Reddick's or anyone else's children.
And Fiers doesn't deserve death wishes or death threats for being nothing more than what he really is---the only man in baseball willing at last to put his name on the record, after numerous previous complaints, from teams to the commissioner, or from players to writers without going on the record, went unanswered or uninvestigated.
What Fiers is to electronic cheating, Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson was when he managed the Reds briefly, the only man in baseball willing to stand up to the rampant gambling-inspired game tanking that ran amok until the Black Sox scandal blew it open and inspired the invention of the very job Manfred now has.
Mathewson only tried to have the most corrupt player of that era and the game's history, first baseman Hal Chase, thrown out of baseball permanently. (Which did happen in due course.) He never wished cancer upon Chase's children or death to Chase himself.
If Fiers never once wished any particular harm upon the Astros other than beating their brains out in baseball games, there's no legitimate call to wish harm or death upon any or all Astros, either. They cheated. They stole games and maybe even a World Series title. No matter how deeply you love the game as I do, that's not even close to the same as selling atomic secrets to an enemy of the United States or setting a personal adversary up to be murdered.
Decry the Astros all you wish for what they and the AIA did. Denounce the 2018-19 Red Sox for their replay room reconnaissance ring---operated while Astrogate co-conspirator Alex Cora managed them, including to a World Series title---from morning until the end of the day.
Ding Manfred's lack of Astro punishment beyond a seven-figure fine, or suspending a now-former general manager and a now-former manager, to the full extent of your rhetorical ability. Rant your head off about how the very thing that was meant to enhance our game, the technology wave of the past decade, fell into the hands of cheaters who figured out how to exploit and abuse it. That's your right, and mine.
Why, maybe even start a campaign to encourage if not insist other teams have a little mad fun with the Astrogate aftermath. The Yankees' Staten Island farm team
plans to give away free miniature trash cans to fans attending a game against the Astros' Tri-City Valley Cats. I hereby see and raise.
Remember the cartoon character Top Cat? His calling card was to
bang a pair of garbage can lids to round his gang up. Demand all Astro opponents hand the first 25,000 fans into the park when the Astros come to town a free pair of garbage can lids to bang while the Astros are at bat---or, offer half price refunds to any fans showing up at the park with their own trash can lids to bang.
That'd be a little snarky. And a lot of mad fun. And, a lot less degenerate way to send the message that their cheating was poisonous.
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