Major League Baseball

Cheating in sports? I'm shocked!

Published Aug. 12, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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Having apprenticed on the city side of a newspaper, covering mostly, as I recall, crack dealers and mafia trials (now I’m really dating myself), people still expect that I was greatly relieved to have been delivered from the mundane world of scoundrels to the majestic realm of athletic competition.

I was not. Every once in a while the clerks, cops, criminals, and especially victims, would do something to affirm your faith in human nature. Sports, on the other hand, depend on the artifice of merit and virtue. In other words, nothing makes you more cynical than sports — especially in times like these, a golden age for the cheaters. It’s gotten to the point where I feel about cheating the way I feel about ripping Randy Moss: Who hasn’t?

Still, I couldn’t help but be struck by this week’s revelation — a very strong and circumstantial suggestion, actually — that the Blue Jays are stealing signs at the Rogers Centre. I’m casting no aspersions here on this particular piece of journalism or the journalists themselves, both of whom are very good. Teams have been complaining about the Blue Jays for years. And now, according to ESPN The Magazine, the tell-tale sign of this Canadian conspiracy is “a man dressed in white” about 25 yards from the bullpen. Sometimes he’s there. Sometimes he’s not. Kind of like the Loch Ness Monster.

Maybe sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Jose Bautista hit 33 of his 54 homers at Rogers Centre last year. This year, 17 of his 33 are on the road.

But coaches and catchers throw signs for a reason, no? It’s not because managers believe their opponents are honorable. Again, are the Blue Jays cheating? I don’t know. I just know it’s not good cheating, definitely not passable by the standards of America’s pastime.

It’s worth reminding you right here that Major League Baseball is the only professional sport that has institutionalized severe competitive disadvantage among its franchises. According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the 2011 Blue Jays have a $70 million player payroll. Their divisional rivals, the Yankees and the Red Sox, are at $207 million and $164 million respectively. Toronto will need more than a man in white to close that gap.

Remember, also, that baseball insists on clinging to its peculiar 19th century conventions. In this digital age, old school baseball cheating — which the Blue Jays stand accused of — seems, well, quaint. After all, reporter Joshua Harris Prager delivered pretty convincing evidence that the sport’s most famous home run — Bobby Thomson’s pennant-winning “shot heard round the world” in 1951 came as a result of the Giants' elaborate sign-stealing scheme at the Polo Grounds.

Ah, the good old days. Remember when pitcher Joe Niekro got busted with an emery board and sand paper? Or Whitey Ford threw his “gunk ball,” loaded with baby oil and turpentine? Or Gaylord Perry? In 1974, he wrote his autobiography, “Me and the Spitter.” Another eight years would pass — with Perry in his 21st season — before an umpire actually tossed him for throwing one.

It seems almost harmless now, looking back after a generation of steroid cheats. Let’s see: The greatest home run hitter in history is a cheater. The guy who’s supposed to break his record is a cheater. The only seven-time Cy Young winner is a cheater, according to the federal government and The Mitchell Report.

But why just pick on baseball? The best coach in the NFL is a cheater. NASCAR’s most celebrated crew chief is a cheater. College sports? Forget it. I have it on pretty good authority that the only football program not being investigated by the NCAA is Bucknell. In basketball, it’s Yeshiva.

You don’t need me to tell you about boxing and horse racing, although for sheer depravity, you can’t help but be impressed with the trainer once accused of having grooms rub his horses’ genitalia and rectums with cayenne pepper.

Hey, I told you: the beauty of competition is not always a beautiful thing.

Me? I’m just waiting for the Olympics. I got a thing for 'roided up Paralympians and women with webbed feet.

By the way, how many of you guys are still sporting those yellow Lance Armstrong bracelets?
 

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