Chansky's Notebook: New-Age Way

Baseball has drawn an indelible line over technology.

Most people are going to say it’s much ado about nothing because stealing signs in baseball is as old as, well, the game itself. Everybody does it, so why can’t teams do it the new-fashioned way?

In a stunning development, two of the last three World Series champions fired their managers when Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred ruled — for the second time — that use of video equipment to steal signs is illegal and shall never be done again — unless the next manager wants to lose his job.

The Houston Astros — who won the World Series in 2017 and lost it in 2019 — also lost their manager, A.J. Hinch and their general manager, when the once-believed-to-be-soft Manfred suspended them for the entire 2020 season. It took the Astros ownership less than an hour to make that suspension permanent with pink slips.

When The Athletic broke this story about a month ago, Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora was implicated because he had been the Houston bench coach for the ’17 championship season, supposedly inventing the banging of trash cans from the dugout to tip off batters about which pitch was coming. That, after the opposing catcher’s signs were stolen via video. Maybe one bang for a fastball, two bangs for a curve and so on.

Cora had to know then he would receive the maximum penalty since Manfred had warned the Red Sox, and other teams, two years ago that major punishment would be coming if they did it again. And when the investigative report on the Astros mentioned Cora no less than 12 times, he was toast. Fired before their own MLB probe was done.

Too bad for both managers, since Hinch was considered one of the top pilots in the game and Cora the wunderkind rookie manager who had led the Bosox to and through the Series in his first season. They say he and team management reached a mutual agreement, but you can bet he was canned for the trashcan caper or whatever stolen signals they used in Boston during their title run.

It’s also a shame for the city that has won championships in all four major sports over the last decade, while all the time being shadowed by the rap of cheating by the Patriots. So this just adds fuel to that fire, and it won’t be long before rival fans begin demanding that all the banners, in all sports, come down.

Of course, that won’t happen, but it’s still a steep price to pay for doing it the new-age way.