Monday was quite a chaotic day in the baseball world, with events unfolding that not only reflected poorly on the Astros, but brought a damper to the entirety of Major League Baseball as a whole.

While the accusations were nothing new, the official penalties for the Astros were released yesterday, with one-year suspensions to both GM Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch. What hurt arguably even more was the loss of first and second round draft picks in both 2020 and 2021. Additionally, the team was fined $5 million as just the cherry on top of what has turned into a complete and utter mess.

Almost immediately after these penalties were announced, Astros owner Jim Crane announced the firings of Luhnow and Hinch, making their suspensions void at least as far as the Astros are concerned, and opening up two important spots in which the Astros were previously thought to have among the best in the game.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora has also been said to have a huge part in the Red Sox’ cheating scandal during their World Series-winning season in 2018, as well as having assisted Hinch as his bench coach in 2017. While Cora’s penalties are yet to be announced, he is likely to fare an even worse fate due to his being involved with multiple teams.

No matter whose side you’re on or to which team you hail, I think it can be agreed unanimously that Monday was a sour day for Major League Baseball. The Astros and Red Sox have embarrassed a game which is rooted in competitiveness and integrity, bringing the term “cheating” to a whole new level. This entire situation has made something as silly as pine tar seem like an afterthought, and even has put the potential altering of the baseballs by Rob Manfred in the rearview mirror.

Baseball games are played under the assumption that all players will tolerate and comply with the rules that have been clearly set out for over a hundred years. Yes, there have been plenty of instances of cheating in the past, but in my opinion this is a whole lot worse than bulking up on steroids or rubbing a foreign substance on the seams. The Astros intentionally sabotaged the entire framework of the game, using technology to essentially control and manipulate the game as they saw fit. No wonder both the Astros and Red Sox won the World Series in the respective years that they were accused of cheating.

The punishments may have been harsh, with Cora’s fate still up in the air, but no punishment could undo the damage done.

In game seven of the 2017 World Series, arguably the biggest game in sports, the Astros quickly and aggressively annihilated the living daylight of Yu Darvish, who was coming off of a very solid regular season with the Rangers and Dodgers, and had even pitched well in the previous two postseason series.

At the time, the consensus was that Darvish was tipping his pitches. But with the information we know now, it’s pretty clear that it was a result of the Astros secretly and unfairly gaining access to information that is kept from them for a reason. That reason is the sake of playing a fair and competitive game. It’s the equivalent of if you were to play Go Fish, but you could see the other person’s cards for the entire game. It’s not just “cheating” or “gaining an unfair advantage” — it’s completely sabotaging and ruining the point and the challenge of actually playing the game.

As a result of the Astros’ subterfuge, Darvish had to traipse back into the Dodger dugout with his head down and 56,000 people loudly jeering and booing him. He had to endure unbearable embarrassment and a deflated morale as he headed into the 2018 season knowing that he failed and let his teammates down in the most important game of his career. As what may or may not have been a coincidence, Darvish had a rough year with the Cubs in 2018, only making eight starts and posting a 4.95 ERA.

But it goes way deeper than just Darvish. Countless other pitchers were sent down and demoralized in large part due to the Astros’ cheating, and that’s just not what the game is about. Forget the juiced ball. At least that makes things equally unfair for everyone. This is more serious, as this is an issue that can dramatically affect the course of events in a season and quite literally rewrite the not-yet-written history books.

With the Astros cheating their way to a 2017 World Series title against the Dodgers, who fought their hearts out playing the game the right way, who knows what events could have unfolded had the games been played under fair and normal conditions? We will never know, because the Astros cheated us out of that experience.

Major League Baseball was absolutely right to issue punishments as harsh as they did, and a case could even be made that the Astros deserved worse. This is a game that people invest millions upon millions of dollars into, dedicating their entire lives and well-beings to compete at the highest level in the world. For a team to just rewrite and sabotage the whole system is not just an act of cheating, but it’s vile and just plain inhumane.

The next step is to see how far Major League Baseball goes in penalizing Cora, who played an even bigger role than Hinch in all of this. Regardless, the main thing we can hope for is that the message is received by all players, coaches, and front office, so that nothing like this ever happens again. It would be an absolute shame if the game we know and love was ruined by something so petty, stupid, and cruel as tampering with the beautiful game of baseball. If stuff like this were to continue happening, it would completely ruin the competitiveness and fun of the game.

Hopefully, the game can continue to be played fairly and competitively, the way it’s supposed to be played, for years to come.