The Red Sox Should Be Punished For AppleGate By Having To Keep John Farrell As Manager Forever
WASHINGTON — For decades, spying on another team has been as much a part of baseball’s gamesmanship as brushback pitches and hard slides. The Boston Red Sox have apparently added a modern — and illicit — twist: They used an Apple Watch to gain an advantage against the Yankees and other teams.
Investigators for Major League Baseball have determined that the Red Sox, who are in first place in the American League East and very likely headed to the playoffs, executed a scheme to illicitly steal hand signals from opponents’ catchers in games against the second-place Yankees and other teams, according to several people briefed on the matter.
The baseball inquiry began about two weeks ago, after the Yankees’ general manager, Brian Cashman, filed a detailed complaint with the commissioner’s office that included video the Yankees shot of the Red Sox dugout during a three-game series between the two teams in Boston last month.
The Yankees, who had long been suspicious of the Red Sox’ stealing catchers’ signs in Fenway Park, contended the video showed a member of the Red Sox training staff looking at his Apple Watch in the dugout. The trainer then relayed a message to other players in the dugout, who, in turn, would signal teammates on the field about the type of pitch that was about to be thrown, according to the people familiar with the case.
So we’ve all had some time to mull over the news that got released yesterday of how the Red Sox were caught stealing signs while using an Apple Watch last month against the Yankees. My first real takeaway from all of this was that an Apple Watch was actually used for something that didn’t involve checking the time. I swear to God I walked into an Apple store when the watch first came out and I had one of the employees give me a tutorial. I literally kept asking the guy what the hell is the point in buying one of these things. You can’t text off it, there’s no hologram of the person you’re talking to that pops up (this should be a thing), there’s nothing cool about it. But here we are. Good old John Farrell and Dave Dombrowski (that long faced weasel fuck) found a way to use the Apple Watch to pick up what pitches the Yankees were throwing. As myself, Jared Carrabis (Care-uh-bus), and others were reading through the lengthy New York Times article we couldn’t help but wonder how the Sox had enough time in between pitches to actually cheat. They had to read the info off of the watch, give that info to Dustin Pedroia, then he would give a sign to someone on base, who would then relay it to the hitter? Huh? I’m almost impressed and not even mad if they were able to pull that elaborate scheme off.
So now the MLB investigation opens up and we’ll really get into the meat and potatoes of what happened here and decide what punishment should be given to Boston. Now realistically, this punishment won’t be anything crazy. It might be a draft pick or two, it might be some slot money for foreign players, it might be a fine of a couple hundred thousand dollars. What it will probably be won’t hurt too much, even though it should. If you’re going to have your President of Baseball Operations come out and say he doesn’t think sign stealing off an Apple Watch is wrong then you need to be punished for such an asshole, snarky comment like that. I’m looking at you Dave Dombrowski with your long, smug, oh so punch-able face.
So what do I think should be the punishment? Take away a few wins? I’d love that, but it’s never happened in a case like this and won’t happen this time. No, I think the Red Sox should be forced to keep John Farrell as their manager for the foreseeable future and by that I mean forever. That man has single handily opened up the AL East to the Yankees after his incompetent moves one after the other. I’ve never seen a more clueless manager out there than Farrell, so seeing him get suspended would be detrimental to the Yankees AL East chances. If Rob Manfred has some balls he’ll force the Red Sox hand here and derail the future of the organization. Keep John Farrell forever and I’m cool with no other punishments.