This has been a huge story, and I can't deny that it has good reason to be. The Astros have affected almost everyone in baseball: the Dodgers and the Yankees, of course, whom they eliminated from the play-offs, but also every other team and almost every individual player. A little-known pitcher named Mike Bolsinger is suing the Astros on the grounds that his bad outing against them in 2017 did irreparable damage to his career. People are pissed off - even the kinds of people who don't tend to get pissed off. Normally taciturn players like Aaron Judge, Nick Markakis, and even the great Mike Trout have publicly castigated the Astros.
The fans are irate to an extent I've never seen before. In 1994, they were disgusted with the greed from both owners and players, which resulted in a lengthy strike and a canceled World Series. In the mid-2000s, they were outraged to find out about the rampant use of steroids, but it was hard to cast too many stones, because every team had fielded its share of users.
The difference this time is that all of the rage is directed towards one team. Almost everyone - fans and players alike - seems to think the Astros got off too easy. True, their manager and general manager were fired. So were the managers of the Red Sox and Mets, who were, respectively, a coach and a player for the 2017 Astros team, both rumored to be heavily involved in cheating tactics. No current players have received punishment, though, and the commissioner has not stripped the Astros of their 2017 title.
Let me say here that the act of vacating titles is categorically dumb. It's an empty gesture that has always seemed to me more like pandering than like actual justice. The way to move on from any event we don't like is not to pretend that the event didn't happen. Will vacating a title really bring much satisfaction to the Dodgers or their fans? Will it really change the way the Astros and their fans think about the 2017 World Series? If popular perception is that a title is tainted, then the title will be remembered that way, whether or not the championship banners are still allowed to fly.
I am not trying to sugarcoat the Astros' cheating. It was bad for the game, bad for the fans, bad for other teams and for many individual players. But some fans' hysterical response to the scandal is, to me, just as bad and often worse. It reminds me of Jon Ronson's great book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, which examines the contemporary phenomenon of massive social media shaming.
"[W]ith social media, we’ve created a stage for constant artificial high drama," write Ronson, "[E]very day a new person emerges as a magnificent hero or a sickening villain. It’s all very sweeping, and not the way we actually are as people.”
In the age of social media, when someone transgresses into "sickening villain" territory, we unleash a torrent of what he calls "ecstatic public condemnation" that build and builds until it is completely out of proportion with the crime that has actually been committed. Again, I am not trying to go easy on the Astros. I just think trial by social media is stupid, boring and unproductive. It has a way of bringing out our basest instincts too. In recent weeks, fans have cheerfully expressed their desire to see players intentionally hit by pitches, and anyone who offers the slightest dissent faces scorn and derision. Calls for both baseball-related and general violence against Astros players have become normalized. For God's sake, Josh Reddick, who may or may not have even participated in the Astros' cheating scheme, has revealed that he has received threats of violence against his family.
A truly appalling paragraph from the ESPN story: "I put a post of my kid rolling over for the first time and I gotta look down there and see 'I hope your kid gets cancer,'" Reddick said. "It makes you really want to see that person in person. Really makes you want to go up to him and see what they would do if you put your face to their face and really get a little bit of retribution for yourself. Pisses you off."
Does anyone really think that sociopathic behavior gets a free pass if it's directed at a cheater? And are you truly a baseball fan if your greatest desire going into this year is to watch living, breathing people being used as target practice dummies? Is this really something you want to see? And yes, they did something wrong. And yes, they deserve punishment. This whole thing has caused real heartbreak, and I don't want to be blase about that.
But there has to be something better than mob justice.
It's baseball season! Spring training games are underway! This year, we get to see what Garrett Cole looks like in pinstripes, and what Mookie Betts looks like in Dodger blue! We get to see whether or not the Nationals can defend their title, and whether or not the Orioles can break the 50-win threshold! We get to see a new stadium in Dallas! We get to watch Albert Pujols cap off a Hall of Fame career!
Look. If you're pissed, then you have every right to be. But if you are looking forward only to watching Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve endure bodily harm, then you're in the wrong place.
If you want to be sad, then be sad. If you want to take a break from baseball then fine, I get it. But if you're just using this scandal to as a receptacle for your own negativity and bloodlust, you can feel free to find a new hobby.
Now can we please talk about something else?
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