St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher blasts commissioner for handling of sign-stealing scandal
Like baseball fans across the country, Jack Flaherty is frustrated. He wants information, and he can’t even get what needs on television.
“It was great that you couldn’t even find it on TV,” Flaherty said Monday morning. “You had to go to find a link on YouTube to even pull it up. That was awesome.”
The “it” to which Flaherty was referring is a press conference held by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred on Sunday evening. It was Manfred’s first open availability since the scandal around the Houston Astros’ trash can banging scheme erupted, and the commissioner was inundated with questions about what he knew, when he knew it, and whether the punishments supplied have been sufficient for the crimes committed.
Early in Sunday’s press conference, Manfred tried to move on to other topics. Reporters weren’t having it.
Neither was Flaherty.
“He tried to brush it off like it was nothing,” Flaherty said. “He tried to make it seem like, not that he thinks it’s a joke, but he tried to brush it off like it was nothing, tried to make it a lighthearted situation.
“I get him wanting to get off the topic and try to go and address other things, but that’s the most pressing issue in baseball right now, is what’s going on, and he tried to get away from it.”
Other players broke the rules and violated the sanctity of the game. The commissioner has called the scheme “player-driven” while exempting players from punishment and coming down on executives.
There’s uncertainty around who’s to blame and what they should be blamed for, and it all results from a slow drip of information that, every day, seems to paint a target upon a fresh back.
“(Manfred) said that there’s only so much information you can give to everybody and kind of let everybody make a decision for themselves. But if you’re making a decision on half the facts, what real decision are you making as everybody else?” Flaherty asked.
“He knows everything that went on.”
The Wall Street Journal has reported over the last week that low-level executives in the Astros organization originally planned out a scheme known as “Codebreaker” that was designed to use an algorithm to decode the signs of opponents and allow the information to be relayed in real time.
That plot evolved into the infamous trash can banging, and from there came the anger which has set players against the commissioners — and against each other — on social media, in print, and through every other avenue which is available to them.
“It is really good that he finds all of this funny,” Flaherty tweeted on Sunday night. He confirmed on Monday morning that the complaint was about Manfred.
“You just saw the way he answered the other questions when it came to, like, the chop, as opposed to when they got in serious questions about it,” Flaherty said. “He kind of tried to laugh it off and it was just like ... I don’t know. It just don’t sit right.”
Flaherty said that he hasn’t heard from anyone with the Astros seeking to clear the air, but that he also hasn’t made an attempt to reach out on his end. Even if he did, he explained, it would be difficult to know who to trust.
“It’s good to hear when guys like Tony Kemp come out and said, ‘I don’t want to be a part of any of this, don’t do that.’ There are certain guys in there who didn’t want to be a part of it. But who didn’t want to be a part of it and who was a part of it? It’s kind of up in the air right now. You only hear what guys said.”
Flaherty also said that, from the perspective of the players, there’s a challenge in trying to determine the proper response to the situation. Without being certain of guilt or innocence, the lingering anger will remain largely undirected.
“I don’t know if I’m going to pitch against them, but it is what it is,” Flaherty said. “It’s not even ‘it is what it is.’ It’s frustrating. It sucks that something like that went on, but I don’t ... it’s hard to say anything when you don’t know all the facts, when they’re holding on to certain information and only release certain parts of it.”
The Cardinals have five scheduled matchups with the Astros in spring training, starting with a split squad game on Feb. 26. That provides ample opportunity for Flaherty to take the mound against Altuve, Bregman, and the other accused parties in the scandal.
Flaherty said he’s considered what he should do if he finds himself in that situation. His conclusion?
“Let ‘em know what’s coming.”
This story was originally published February 17, 2020 at 11:32 AM.
