In spite of widespread outcry, Major League Baseball certainly doesn’t sound like it’s considering taking any action against the Houston Astros over an alleged sign-stealing operation.
In a statement released Wednesday, the league said that it had determined the incidents involving an Astros employee to be an effort to ensure that their opponents were not breaking any rules. MLB told clubs not to do that and instead report any potential rules violations directly to the league, and considers the investigation into Houston’s activities to be closed.
MLB statement on the latest sign-stealing situation: pic.twitter.com/Jhu79BHf8I
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) October 17, 2018
MLB also admitted that it received various complaints about potentially improper use of video equipment, but stressed that such complaints were not directed toward a single club.
This is unlikely to cause the issue to die down or convince anyone that the Astros weren’t acting in bad faith. After all, it’s quite clear that a number of teams around the league are of the belief that this was part of a sign-stealing operation, not just some sort of bizarre watchdog role. Just Wednesday, we learned of reports that indicated the Astros were still trying to get employees into the photographer’s pit even after their initial efforts were rebuffed. People will believe what they want here, and the narrative that the Astros are up to something shady has already taken hold among rival teams and fans. No amount of MLB statements are going to make that go away.
