Along with the rest of MLB, the Baltimore Orioles have to be looking towards West Palm Beach where the Houston Astros train while shaking their heads. Not only because of what they were doing in terms of the cheating scandal. But how they’ve handled it since the news of it brok. How one handles a situation can often begin to take on a life all of it’s own in cases like this. Needless to say with Houston, that’s what’s happening.
First off, when Houston won the 2017 World Series there’s not a fan across baseball that wasn’t happy for them. They had rebuilt their organization from the ground up. It appeared they had done it the right way, and that they had succeeded. Save for the fact that they cheated, that may well have been true.
But the players came across as less than humble about their success. They were loud and proud about the fact that they were the champions. Some people might not have an issue with that per se, however when it later comes out that you were cheating…yeah you’re going to get some blow back when you were less-than-gracious winners to begin with.
But it goes well beyond that. Players have come off as less than contrite when talking about this matter. And that’s a real problem. ALL PLAYERS from the 2017 squad should be counting their blessings that they got immunity. Instead, in their minds they seem to have done nothing wrong. That’s a major problem.
Each time they speak on the matter they put their foots further and further into their mouths. We’re supposed to believe that someone’s wife just didn’t want him taking his shirt off? And then we’re later supposed to believe that he had a bad tattoo he didn’t want shown? We’re just supposed to accept that?
This story isn’t going away. People are still talking about the 1919 Black Sox scandal, they’re still talking about gambling in baseball, and they’re still talking about PED’s. This isn’t going away. But engaging in self-preservation tactics such as excuse-making isn’t going to make it go away faster. It’s going to keep it in the national discussion.
The moral of this story is that organizations need to engage in proper damage-control when things like this happen. Because if you don’t, the poor manner in which the situation is handled will blow right up in your face.
Birdland Crush 