NFL Victors Advancing to the Super Bowl…and the Latest Baseball Scandal
The question was whether to start with an upper then finish with a downer. Or the other way around.
The upper represents the NFL conference championship games with the victors advancing to the Super Bowl.
The downer is the latest baseball scandal involving the stealing of signs given by the catcher to the pitcher.
I think I’ll wind up on a higher note. So we’ll begin with the revelation that the World Champion Houston Astros cheated their way to a title in 2017, and other teams might have done the same beyond.
Let’s start with the basic fact that sign-stealing has been a way of life in baseball forever.
The ability of teams to read and interpret the signals from catchers to pitchers to decipher whether a fastball or a breaking ball was on its way has always been kind of an art form.
Runners would reach second base and if they could, peer in and read the catchers sign and signal to the batter what might be upcoming. There were other ways of course, but it generally turned into a cat-and-mouse, game-within-a-game practice that was part of the “inner game” of baseball.
Unfortunately, as the world has changed, so has the ways and means of cheating.
It has been evident in other sports, as we all know, but we’re dealing with one sport here.
It all began with the famous Black Sox scandal in 1919, when players actually fixed the results of games through their performance for betting purposes.
It continued with the steroid era, where players used performance enhancing drugs.
As an aside, it’s fascinating how the best players and athletes were in the forefront of the cheating parade.
The ones who needed it the least, used it the most.
I can list Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Andy Petitte, and of course, Alex Rodriguez among the prominent baseball stars. And let’s not forget cyclist Lance Armstrong, one of the all-time greats, who admitted to cheating.
This time, the Houston Astros coming off two World Series appearances in the last three seasons, were ruled guilty during their 2017 championship year. Their Manager, A.J. Hinch and General Manager, Jeff Luhnow, were suspended for the coming seasons by Major League Baseball, and the club was fined $5 million and forced to give up their top two draft choices in the next two years.
The Astros promptly fired both men, but that was only the start of this ugly trail.
The Astros went beyond the rules of the game by employing an intricate set of electronic methods.
A.J. Hinch and Jeff Luhnow
To cut to the chase, they used a video replay system, starting with establishing a video room near their dugout and taking the view from the center-field camera, relayed the signs to the batter as to what pitch was coming up. Either one of the players would act as a “runner” to reveal the sign by the catcher, or a player would bang on a trash can with a bat to get the job done. If the sign indicated fastball, there would be silence. If the signal was for a curve or slider, the sound of bat-on-trash can would be sounded.
None of this would have been revealed had players on the club not come forth, opening the investigation.
Apparently, the man who led this method of sign-stealing was the Astros bench coach Alex Cora, who became Manager of the Boston Red Sox in 2018, right after Houston’s 2017 championship.
Amazingly enough, the Red Sox captured the World Series in Cora’s first year at the helm. Umm!
Alex Cora
Last season, however, the Red Sox fell to third place in the AL East, finishing 19 games behind the Yankees.
But the damage had been done a couple of years before, and last week Cora and the Red Sox mutually agree to part ways.
The investigation into whether the Red Sox engaged in similar sign-stealing is ongoing.
In addition to all of this, Carlos Beltan, a distinguished player for several teams, and one of the best post-season hitters of all-time, departed from the New York Mets, a month before he was to debut as their new skipper.
Beltran, was a member of that Astros title team in 2017.
Carlos Beltan
Here are my thoughts in a relative nutshell: The Astros should immediately be disqualified from winning the 2017 World Series. While I agree that suspending the players would be “difficult and impractical”, there should be some kind of punishment inflicted. Let’s face it, you can’t really suspend 25 players. But they are unquestionably guilty of cheating.
If a team can steal signs to gain an advantage by keen observation, I’m all for it.
But when artificial means are used, the line has been crossed.
In today’s world of sophisticated video, smartphones and smartwatches, there is no limit to where cheating in sports can go.
It’s just sad that those who play sports, from the star professional athlete, to your fellow club member on a Saturday morning of golf, has to bend the rules to try to win. Sad.
Now let’s finish with something upbeat, at least for the survivors who will play in Super Bowl 54.
It’ll be the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers in Miami.
A sea of red will form the mosaic for the NFL championship the first Sunday in February.
In fact, the colors of both teams are the same: red and gold.
It’s not the first time, since I do recall the New York Giants and the Buffalo Bills, wore blue and red.
There are likely others as well.
Next week we’ll look forward beyond the colors.
This week, we look back.
For the Chiefs, who once again, trailed their opponents, it looked like they were satisfied to give their foes a head start before unleashing an unstoppable attack that seemed to never end.
The Houston Texans led 24-0 before KC went on a 41-point spree in the divisional round, and in the AFC title game, the Tennessee Titans jumped out to a 10-0, then 17-7 lead before the Chiefs went wild.
This is a fun team to watch. And it all starts with young quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who has the utter confidence and skills to win with his arm and legs to make his team look unstoppable.
Time for another aside: It’s funny how people are now saying Mahomes is the best QB in the game.
Patrick Mahomes
He may be, but it’s less than a year how Tom Brady was regaled as not only the best in the game at his position, but the GOAT (Greatest Of All-Time). He probably is that.
How quickly the tide has turned. In today’s sports, with today’s media, and younger fans, it’s all about who is the best of all-time.
Whether it’s a team, a player, or a play, there seems to be a fierce determination to make a blanket declaration that will put an all-time label on everything.
Hey, let Mahomes go out an try to win his first Super Bowl before we go off the rails.
The Titans were the surprise of post-season. Second-year head coach Mike Vrabel had his team looking a lot like the beginnings of a New England Patriots team he played on, determined, poised, relentless and talented.
But they were ultimately outclassed by a Kansas City group that wouldn’t allow amazing running back Derrick Henry to control the game as he had done in the two road victories against the Patriots and Ravens.
Still, if your choices come down to this: keep pounding with Henry, despite playing with a deficit, or putting the game into the hands of Ryan Tannehill, as well as he performed in the regular season and in the first two playoff games, there may not really be a choice.
I know my great friend, Ernie Accorsi, the man who built the two-time Super Bowl NY Giants, believed totally surrendering the running game is a recipe for defeat.
It probably wouldn’t have made a difference. This Kansas City team can score.
So can the San Francisco 49ers. But they go about it a different way.
In beating the Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship game, the 49ers never stopped running the ball.
They have a great story in running back Raheem Mostert, who went wild. Mostert, the 49ers fourth-string running back at training camp, and cut previously by six NFL clubs, rushed for 220 yards and scored four touchdowns was the star of the game.
Raheem Mostert
It was more than having a spectacular runner. The 49ers came out with a mind-set to dominate the contest on both sides of the ball, not easy when you’re facing a great quarterback in Aaron Rodgers. Both the offensive and defensive lines determined the result of this game.
49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo threw a mere eight passes, completing six for only 77 yards.
I had to laugh. I was thinking of Bob Griese, the Hall of Fame quarterback of the Miami Dolphins, and my partner for a nearly a decade on the Dolphins pre-season telecasts. Griese led the Dolphins to back-to-back Super Bowl titles.
The first was against the Redskins. In that game, Griese completed only eight of 11 passes.
The next year against the Vikings, he had only seven attempts, completing six.
But wait a minute. We’re talking Super Bowl 7 and Super Bowl 8. The 1972 and ’73 seasons.
The game is light years different today.
But some things never change.
The ability to run the ball, and the ability to limit the run and rush the passer on defense, has never changed.
The 49ers did it the old-fashioned way to punch their ticket to Super Bowl 54.
The last time this one-time dynasty hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy was 25 years ago.
But how about ‘them Chiefs? The last time this franchise won a Super Bowl came 50 years ago.
It’s time to start licking your chops in anticipation.
