Chris Sale of the Boston Red Sox said the 2017 Houston Astros weren’t the only sign-stealers.
Even after getting lit up like a Christmas tree by the Houston Astros in the 2017 ALDS, Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Chris Sale becomes the latest big-leaguer to say Houston wasn’t the only team going rogue that season.
Sale may have given up nine runs in 9.2 innings in the best-of-five series to the Astros, but he knows they weren’t the only team cheating that year. The often-injured southpaw appeared on The Greg Hill Show Monday morning ahead of the regular season. While the sign-stealing scandal happened five years ago, it is a black mark on the game of baseball that simply will not go away.
Sale gave an interesting perspective on the whole situation and the sign-stealing fallout.
“I don’t know, man, Here’s the thing, and I’m going to give you my honest opinion: If the Astros were the only team doing it, then yeah. Give it back. Take it back. I know for a fact they weren’t,” said Sale on WEEI Monday morning. “All these people pointing fingers, well, hey, take a check in the mirror real quick. Make sure you and your team weren’t doing something.”
While Sale is not a moralist, he would really like for baseball to finally turn the page on the subject.
“And what they did was wrong, and I’m not trying to condone it. but, shoot, we’re talking five years ago now, and we’re still talking about this stuff. I’d like to kind of turn the page on it, but it happened, they dealt with it, there’s nothing you can really do about it now sitting here where we are, so you just kind of move on from it.”
So how long is it going to take for the entire baseball world to move from this Houston scandal?
Chris Sale says the 2017 Houston Astros weren’t the only cheaters that year
While the cheating may not have been as involved as what Houston did, don’t kid yourselves. Everybody is trying to look for an edge in professional sports. Houston may have been more egregious with it and got caught, but we would be foolish to think the Astros were the only team up to shenanigans around that time. They took advantage of a situation and won the whole thing.
As for how long everybody and their brother is going to be obsessed with the sign-stealing scandal in Houston, the animus will subside with each passing year. One player after another from that core will have either retired or found a new team to play for. After a while, there will not be hardly anyone left from the first World Series championship team in Houston baseball history.
As far as what comes next for the Astros and the Red Sox, Houston looks to defend another AL pennant, while Boston hopes to hang tough in a brutal AL East. Sale is sidelined for the time being, as he was placed on the 60-day IL with a stress fracture in his right rib. If he can return in the middle-to-latter part of the season, perhaps he can help ignite the Red Sox on a postseason run?
Even if the Astros were not the only team who cheated, Sale is right and let’s move on from this.