BRADENTON, Fla. _ It's baseball's version of the Jelly of the Month Club _ the gift that keeps on giving all spring training long.
Only the Astros' sign-stealing scandal has done nothing but leave a bad taste in the sport's collective mouth.
Because of the actions by those who cheated, sure, but also their bungled and insincere apology; their refusal to admit this was/is a big deal; the fact that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred didn't actually punish any of them and even Manfred's own antics, devaluing the World Series trophy a few days back and generally coming off like he either doesn't know or care about what his players think and feel.
It's a disaster, a festering fiasco that's otherwise taking away from what should be the happiest time of the year and every day it begs the question: When will this stuff finally stop?
Not soon enough, apparently, as Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James pumped life into the whole ordeal with a pair of tweets Tuesday that went out to his 45.2 million followers.
"LeBron recognizes his voice and platform," Jameson Taillon said Wednesday morning at Pirate City, reacting to James lending his voice to Major League Baseball's ongoing crisis. "Throughout his whole career, he's used his voice to speak on issues he feels strongly about. I'm happy that he spoke out. It brings attention to the problem. He might not play baseball, but he's one of the greatest athletes of all time."
James made a couple of key points in his tweets: One, he'd be "(bleeping) irate" if someone cheated him out of a title, which is completely understandable, while later imploring Manfred to listen to his players. While it would be impossible to find a player happy about what transpired, the second part of what James said really resonated with Taillon, the Pirates' representative for the Major League Baseball Players Association.
"I actually liked the statement he made about the commissioner listening to the players," Taillon said. "Players are mad right now. Players are upset. It sounds cliche, but hopefully from a little disagreement, some great result may come from it.
"(LeBron) understands what that stage means and what that means to guys' careers. Quite frankly, that's why guys play sports and why they become so obsessed with what they do, which is wanting to win a championship. It's cool that he was speaking out on it and felt strongly about it."
The whole Astros thing has been tough to avoid at spring training, in large part because it remains a topic of conversation nationally in baseball. Probably the biggest one, too.
Joe Musgrove, who actually played on that 2017 Astros team, has some perspective here, although Musgrove was young, didn't benefit from the cheating and really had no easy way of stopping it without potentially putting his entire career on the line.
After Taillon finished addressing James' comments, Manfred calling the World Series trophy a "piece of metal," whether or not players should be punished and a few other things, it seemed logical to circle back to Musgrove on the entire ordeal.
"It feels like everyone is looking for something else, that people aren't settled with what's come out," Musgrove said. "I feel like the ultimate thing that's keeping this thing going is the frustration from the players with the fact that none of the players on that team got punished.
"I think guys would feel a lot better if the players themselves had to deal with the repercussions of getting caught cheating."
In a way, Musgrove is saying he should be punished, although you should understand his point of view. Not only is it impractical to punish other teams for the misdeeds of one, but was Musgrove _ way down the totem pole _ expected to tell Houston's stars how to act?
Or, worse, was he supposed to rat them out? There's a reason it took Mike Fiers as long as it did to say what he said. Musgrove admitted to being caught up in the moment, and the belief at the time _ right or wrong _ was that everyone was cheating. The Astros didn't think (and probably still don't) they were acting alone.
"I'll tell you what, being in that clubhouse, it's a lot harder to make a moral decision that people say we should have made at the time when you're surrounded by 24 other guys competing, seeing other teams cheating and not knowing to what extent they're cheating and realizing that everyone has access to the same stuff that Astros had in '17," Musgrove said. "That doesn't make any of it right, but that's where I think everyone's mind was at the time."
It's impossible to suspend everyone now. Whether you agree or not, Manfred granted Astros players immunity in exchange for their honest testimony, and there's really nothing anybody can do to change that.
What's left is, as Taillon said, a bunch of angry players, a commissioner who's simultaneously squirming and growing increasingly irritated at what's happening here, baseball fans who are sick of hearing about this stuff, an Astros team that will undoubtedly be the target of vitriol this season and even more paranoia across the league relative to sign stealing.
"I'm definitely not running from it," Musgrove said. "I was on that team. I'm not trying to distance myself from them at all. I feel for those guys. Part of you feels guilty for being out of there and not having to deal with what they're dealing with, but I don't know what fixes this.
"It's going to be a tough year for them to go into visiting ballparks and having to deal with that. They know what they have in front of them. I think time will heal everything, but I know for a while, people are going to be pretty upset about this."
