Sat Jan 25, 2020 2:10 am
What makes this bigger than the Black Sox isn't whether the "crime" was worse. But, how badly 21st century MLB reacted / responded to it. And, why MLB would react to it so poorly in this day and age.
The environment in baseball before 1919 was poor. Ruth and HR mania hadn't happened, yet. WWI had hurt baseball badly in 1917 and 1918 (not so much in 1916). There was also a rival league in the mid 19 teens called the Federal League that had created some disruption before the bigger crunch during the last two years of the war. Many owners were losing money for multiple years leading up to 1919 and the ones who were turning a profit had seen a big drop in their margins.
In addition, the inherent corruption of Ban Johnson's influence was really impacting the competitiveness of the game in a negative way, as well. The impetus coming from the problems broke Johnson's hold on the American League and created enough support to put a guy like Judge Landis in as Commissioner. Landis, of course, received much more power than the two league presidents had previously. The improvements and credibility that MLB experienced because of Landis were big. It also must be mentioned that Ruth's impact was also very big and can't be discounted. But, no one knew that Ruth was going to happen. They DID know that they had a big problem, needed to get rid of Ban Johnson, and do something (Landis) to turn things around.
Regrettably, one of the reactions from the financial insecurity was that the anti-trust exemption gained some legs and got through courts and appeals more or less from 1922 onwards. To me, this is the crux of the problem we see impacting baseball at least since the 50s and 60s. MLB has been unable to police itself and reform for 70 or more years.
We can see this reflected in how slowly the color barrier was lifted, the collusion around the reserve clause, the rampant amphetamine use for decades, more collusion in the early - mid 80s, the PEDs, excluding technology from balls and strikes / umpiring, the tremendous resistance by the owners and players' union for PED testing and penalties, and finally avoiding looking too closely at this recent cheating thing until they were having their noses rubbed in it with players going public with easily verifiable evidence. And then magically when it can't be avoided, a handful of bit players are vilified and hammered in very short order (managers are bit players - all you have to do is follow the money to know that). But, not anyone's prized assets like the actual players or the owners. Everything is dandy, again, in time for spring training and opening day.
The only reason an industry even tries to get away with this kind of crap is because they don't have competitive pressure and they're doing anything and everything to maintain and increase revenue and margin.
I am a casual fan of the Astros. I like some of their players and have them on my keeper league team. But, they should have stripped the WS from them and identified and penalized the offending players with at least full year suspensions not unlike what the managers got. But, the owners would NEVER tolerate that.
