MLB scandal: That hundred-twenty-year ethical problem

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(Photo by Cooper Neill/MLB via Getty Images) /

All baseball fans are shocked — shocked — to learn about the MLB scandal involving the Houston Astros, but what will really happen about it?

For those who haven’t yet seen Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell’s extremely articulate comment Feb. 12 on the Houston Astros’ MLB scandal, it is well worth the several minutes needed to take it in.

Boswell takes a very long view of the continuing ethical problem in baseball, touching briefly on the steroid era, decades of MLB owners’ bad faith negotiations that cost them $280 million dollars (“probably connected to” those PEDS), and Pete Rose’s tone-deaf recent plea for reinstatement. He eventually works his way around to some common sense suggestions about the most recent MLB scandal, and a warning that a sport losing the public’s faith in its integrity could well go into the sort of decline experienced by boxing and horse-racing.

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Of course, Boswell might have included a lot more examples, from the game-throwing scandals of the early 20th century to the use of amphetamines that probably peaked in the 1970s for MLB, but which actually started much earlier.

He might have included time-honored “unwritten rules” in MLB like pitchers protecting teammates who have been hit with pitches by throwing at opposing players. You can argue this is something that “evens out” over the long run, but as an ethical matter – or a moral matter – is it right for an individual to ever throw a baseball 90-to-95 mph at another human? At his hands? Near or at his head?

Boswell might have included the eternal pitchers search for ways to make a thrown baseball move oddly by a cheater’s means.

But can outright cheating and other ethically questionable actions ever be stopped? Will MLB’s ruling councils start mandating year-long suspensions, or lifetime bans for certain infractions, even in the first instance?

Let’s think a bit smaller: Will MLB ever decide, for example, to throw a pitcher out of a game if a pitch is near a batter’s head and three of the four umpires “find” that it was intentional without first warning both teams.

If a team is found to be cheating on a wholesale level, as the Astros seem to have been, will the players involved (not just team management) be targeted by MLB as Boswell suggests?

The answer seems to be a firm not yet. If ever. And there are two reasons for that.

29 Apr 1993: Outfielder Lenny Dykstra of the Philadelphia Phillies stands on the field during a game against the San Diego Padres at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, California. /

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The first reason will seem fairly cynical to some, but human nature intersecting with sport somehow encourages cheating and other moral lapses that corrupt contests’ honesty and may even endanger not only those being cheated, but the cheaters themselves. This is particularly true at the highest levels of professional sport, where the very best competitors are constantly challenged by those who are really not very different from them in ability.

Oh, you may say, “Well, guys like Dale Murphy don’t cheat. Roly-poly John Kruk certainly wasn’t taking steroids.” These assertions are seemingly true. Humans are all different to a certain extent. Statistically, however, someone will be cheating, or trying to, always. And this isn’t entirely a matter of raking in the big bucks.

The decades-long abuse of Dexedrine and Benzedrine, for example, actually began in the 1940s, after ballplayers had been exposed to amphetamines in the military during World War II. Legend has it that slugger Ralph Kiner was initially shocked to see players abuse such drugs, but he eventually said, “All the trainers in all the ballparks had them.”

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But MLB players weren’t raking in piles of money for the most part in the ’40s. Except for the very best, most players had off-season jobs or businesses.

Just last month Inquirer.com writer Frank Fitzpatrick recapped the first Philadelphia Phillies MLB scandal, a comic, sign-stealing matter that involved shocking the third base coach through the ground with underground electrical wiring. This occurred in 1900, when MLB players were paid peanuts by modern standards. And the Fightin’s “got off scot-free” while the generally “boosterish” newspapermen fretted, as one did, “This may be honest baseball, but the general public has nothing but contempt for people who play with marked cards.”

Cheating or risking (usually others’) injury has been an MLB scandal for well over a century. Poor players have cheated; rich ones have as well. Relatively weak players have done it; so have the stars. Willie Mays and Lenny Dykstra were both accused of using PEDS; Dykstra as much as admitted it, casually referring to “some real good vitamins” in front of multiple sportswriters in 1993.

And Then, There Is All That Money

However, money – the second reason for literally every MLB scandal – has certainly made things worse. Simply put, there is so much more of it for everybody now, and no one wants to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Why, what would happen if the greatest talent in the game’s history – maybe the all-time home run king – were a cheater?

Oh, right…. Nothing happened.

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Moreover, for all of the discussion of MLB’s attendance problem, tickets sales remain in the ballpark of 70 million a year. Yes, there has been a steady year-over-year decline for a while, and while people don’t always pay good attention to the game itself, they’re likely in the team shop shelling out $70 minimum for replica team jerseys or $25 for a ballcap that in many cities can be bought outside the park for $5.

All of which brings us back to one of the truly curious passages in Boswell’s article: “Automation of ball-strike calls can’t come too soon. Why? If you think fans mutter about the eyes, and motives, of umpires now, just wait until prop bets are available at your seat on whether the next hitter walks or strikes out.”

It’s not entirely clear if what he means is that the MLB teams will offer that service with special devices or in special seats, or if he means that such bets would be made with phone apps. However, we’re very close to that day as most people who have ever used a smartphone can see.

It’s a moneymaker! Everybody takes too many pitches now anyway; way too many hitters either walk, strike out, or hit high flyballs. It’ll juice the interest!

What the scandal that is baseball ethics will likely remain for quite a while is a snipers’ war. Team A or Player B will figure out a new way to cut a corner. Bang. MLB will fire back with measures like banning TV monitoring in the dugout and clubhouse.

Bang.

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On this and any other MLB scandal you can think of, then, Boswell writes, “What does baseball need to do? Everything it can think of.”

In reality, that will just be more snipers.

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