In a meeting with the media that is already drawing fierce criticism, members of the Houston Astros attempted to explain and apologize for their role in the sign stealing scandal that is still rocking baseball. The Astros were represented by two of the star players, Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman, their new manager, Dusty Baker and team owner Jim Crane.
The two players each spoke for under two minutes and refused to take questions from the press, retiring to the clubhouse after their remarks. “I am really sorry about the choices that were made by my team by the organization and by me,” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman said at the team’s spring training facility in West Palm Beach, Fla. “I have learned from this and I hope to regain the trust of baseball fans. I would also like to thank the Astros fans for all of their support. We as a team are totally focused on moving forward to the 2020 season.”
Altuve followed with: “I want to say that the whole Astros organization and the team feels bad about what happened in 2017,” in a 38-second statement. “We especially feel remorse for the impact on the fans and the game of baseball, and our team is determined to move forward, to play with intensity and to bring back a championship to Houston in 2020.” That was all that the two players offered, yielding criticism as no mention of buzzers or other sign stealing were allowed to be asked. At least the Astros opened their clubhouse after the presser and perhaps more will be said.
Crane, for his part, did most of the talking, showed some contrition, but failed to admit the team ‘cheated’ in any way. He let Baker, who wasn’t even part of the team during this scandal, admit a lot of the wrongdoing. A team meeting was held on Tuesday night and Baker referenced it during his comments. “At that meeting last night, the players showed tremendous remorse, sorrow and embarrassment for their families, organization, city of Houston and baseball,” Baker said. “I want to ask for the baseball world to forgive them for the mistakes they made.”
Crane also apologized on behalf of his team, laying much of the blame on now fired A.J. Finch and Jeff Luhnow, the teams’ former general manager. Crane stated, “I want to say again how sorry our team is for what happened . I want to repeat this will never happen again on my watch.”
The owner says that he agrees with commissioner Rob Manfred’s decision not to punish the players involved in the scandal. The organization’s “leaders enabled, condoned, and did not stop” the sign-stealing effort. Crane called the players “a great group of guys” who merely lacked “proper guidance from our leaders.” It’s quite a contrast to Manfred’s report, which specifically described a “player-driven effort.” And this disparity in opinions is also drawing ire in the media.
Mike Francesa called the press conference a joke and a disaster and deemed it a setback for baseball.
Another head-scratcher occured in this exchange:
When asked if he’d call what the Astros did “cheating,” Crane didn’t use the word.
“We broke the rules,” Crane said. “You can phrase that any way you want.”
He also did not feel the the Dodgers or the Yankees were in anyway affected by the scandal during the 2017 playoffs. “Our opinion is this didn’t impact the game,” Crane said. “We had a good team. We won the World Series and we’ll leave it at that.”
Leaving it “at that” will be hard. Perhaps the clubhouse session with the press and the players will shed more light, but Crane’s craven and often standoffish appoach rubbed many the wrong way.
The presser concluded with Crane admitting that there will be some changes in the teams way of doing business. He had originally maintained that the overall culture was not a problem, disputing Manfred’s report in that regard. But new evidence has exposed the role of the baseball ops staff in originating and perpetuating the sign-stealing scheme. Several current employees were implicated clearly in a way that was not documented in the report.
Crane’s tenor varied somewhat during the press conference as he first claimed,
“Clearly the report states that I didn’t know about it. Had I known about it, I’d have done something about it.”
It’s hard to fathom an owner not knowing the goings on of his team but that is what he claimed.
Overall, the press conference probably left reporters with more questions then were answered. The fact that the players made such a brief appearance and took no questions left a bad taste. Also, Cranes’s varying mood, that ranged from contrition to near defiance didn’t help matters. The Astros tried to say sorry, and they did just that. But the baseball world was expecting more, and on that front, the Astros did not deliver.
