The Unnatural

“It started with a discussion about whether the player who helped expose the game’s biggest cheating scandal in a century was a whistleblower or a narc, moved on to the firing of a manager who hadn’t even managed a game, degenerated into anonymous Twitter accounts lobbing entirely uncorroborated accusations of even worse cheating, giddily grew into a miasma of conspiratorial, frame-by-frame breakdowns of jerseys and lip-reading and confetti. It was a beautiful, ugly, transfixing, maddening, godforsaken mess, simultaneously addictive and repulsive. For one day, baseball felt like a real modern sport, full of verve, and not one stuck in the morass of its past.” ESPN’s Jeff Passan with the latest, and weirdest, on the sign stealing scandal: Buzzers, burner accounts and conspiracies: Inside baseball’s day of epic chaos. As they say, “Playing baseball for a living is like having a license to steal.” Actually, Pete Rose said that… (Editor’s note: Pitchers and Catchers report on Feb 14!)