Rob Manfred is still struggling to clean up the Houston Astros’ mess.
The MLB commissioner did little to lessen criticism of the league’s handling of the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, which called into question the validity of the team’s 2017 World Series win. Manfred met with ESPN for a sit-down interview, which went live on Sunday morning, and he addressed the general assessment that the Astros’ apologies were a complete failure.
“It was not successful,” Manfred told ESPN.
The same could be said for most stages of the scandal: the investigation, the punishment, the apologies. The cheating itself, however, seemed to be quite successful. But Manfred struggled to get conclusive evidence on some of the suggested methods of sign-stealing. For example, Manfred reiterated that there was no evidence that Astros players were using a buzzer under their jerseys to aid in their sign-stealing scheme.
As the interview came to a close, Manfred said he would “work with the Astros to help them put this behind them.”
To a degree, he’s trying to show he’s taking an interest in moving on from this scandal. And why wouldn’t he? His office’s handling of the situation has been, to steal his words, not successful. But his comments also come off as disingenuous, as if he’s trying to put the scandal behind the Astros in an effort to cover up the scale of the cheating, because that magnitude makes Manfred look awfully bad.
MLB fans on Twitter did not seem reassured by Manfred’s comments on Sunday. To the contrary.
Manfred will survive this. The Astros will, too. And no one will be happy — not even the Astros, who apparently don’t feel a great deal of remorse for their actions.
