Commentary: What a week it was for the disgraced game of baseball

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training this week.

The best words in sports, right?

Now, more than ever, baseball needs that.

What a week it was for the disgraced game.

Hank Aaron hammered cheaters. Pete Rose begged for reinstatement again. A.J. Hinch and Charlie Morton expressed remorse for their role in one of the sport’s biggest scandals. Houston Astros management was linked deeper to a scheme known as “Codebreaker,” doing further damage to the legitimacy of the team’s 2017 World Series championship.

Play ball!

The Wall Street Journal was responsible for the new details of the Astros’ cheating. It reported Friday that then-general manager Jeff Luhnow not only knew about an elaborate, electronic sign-stealing application that was designed to decode opposing catchers’ signs during the 2017 and 2018 seasons but encouraged its use. Luhnow and Hinch, who was then the Astros’ manager, were suspended by baseball for one year Jan. 13 and immediately fired by the team.

The Wall Street Journal report gave some credence to superagent Scott Boras’ stance that hitters who took part in the cheating should not be punished because they only were doing what they were told to do. Carlos Beltran, the only Astros player linked publicly to the sign-stealing, retired after the 2017 season. He was hired as manager by the New York Mets in November and fired soon after the cheating scandal broke.

“You put this in front of us,” Boras told The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal last month, detailing the players’ mindset. “Coaches and managers encourage you to use the information. It is not coming from the player individually. It is coming from the team. In my stadium. Installed. With authority.”

I’m guessing Aaron would disagree with Boras’ position.

It seems right that NBC’s Today Show went to Aaron, 86, last week to get his take on the scandal. Who knows more about the impact of cheating than him? His home run record was taken by Barry Bonds, who has been linked to steroids. Aaron, in an interview in 2009, took a relatively soft stance against those players who have been associated with performance-enhancing drugs, saying only that their accomplishments should be marked with an asterisk. But he left no doubt about how he feels about the Astros’ sign-stealing.

“I think whoever did that should be out of baseball the rest of their life,” Aaron told The Today Show.

Hinch understands that thinking. He acknowledged the Astros’ championship will be questioned forever because of the cheating. He also apologized for not stopping it.

“I’m the man up front,” Hinch told Tom Verducci of MLB Network Friday night. “I was in a position of knowledge . I regret so much about that and it’s so complicated and so deep and there are parts that are hard to talk about but taking responsibility as the manager . It happened on my watch. I’m not proud of that. I’ll never be proud of it. I didn’t like it. But I have to own it because I was in a leadership position.”

Morton, a pitcher with the Astros in 2017 and 2018 and the Pirates before that, expressed similar contrition in an interview Saturday with the Tampa Bay Times.

“Personally, I regret not doing more to stop it. Because what’s wrong is wrong. And I’ll never be absolved of that.”

Rose, baseball’s all-time hits leader, has been watching all of this closely. He received a lifetime ban from the game in 1989 by then-commissioner Bart Giamatti for betting on games. He submitted a 19-page letter Wednesday to commissioner Rob Manfred, the gist of which said Manfred’s refusal to punish active players in the Astros’ cheating scandal opens the door for his reinstatement.

“In recent years, intentional and covert acts by current and past owners, managers, coaches and players altered the outcomes of numerous games, including the World Series, and illegally enhanced both team and player performance,” Rose’s lawyers wrote. “It has never been suggested, let alone established that any of Mr. Rose’s actions influenced the outcome of any game or the performance of any player. Yet for the thirty-first year and counting, he continues to suffer a punishment vastly disproportionate to those who have done just that.”

The final word here comes from Aaron.

And I mean word.

When asked by The Today show if Rose should be reinstated, Aaron didn’t hesitate.

“No.”