Houston Astros: The next sign-stealing casualties
By Bill Felber
Legacies
Until the report’s release, both the Houston Astros and Red Sox were viewed as among the great dynasties of the game’s modern history. Both won World Series titles, and the Astros nearly came away with a second this past season.
Those teams’ performances now are forever tainted.
The 2017 Astros win was the franchise’s most glorious moment, its first championship in a nearly 60-year history. Technically that championship still exists but was a practical matter it has been dragged through the mud.
Read. Red Sox: 100 years later, the return of the curse?. light
Tainting a World Series in any matter is not the kind of thing that wears away. A full century after the Black Sox scandal, there remains a widespread view that the Cincinnati Reds’ championship is colored by the Sox’ failure to play their best. This continues even though the Reds did nothing wrong and actually had a better regular-season record than the White Sox.
As for the Red Sox’ 2018 World Series win, the extent of damage to that event is not yet fully calculated. MLB continues to investigate electronic sign-stealing allegations that may have marred that Series. Other current or former personnel could yet be implicated.
But the Sox have a lot on the line beyond that one World Series win. It was their fourth since 2004, and they are the only big league team to have won that often in that time period. So at least to a degree, the findings compromise a claim Boston fans have loved to make, that theirs is the pre-eminent franchise of the 21st Century to date.