![]() ![]() Crane retained ownership, the franchise kept its World Series title and none of the players involved faced discipline. But if anything, the Astros got off easy for measures that could have substantively contributed to a championship. Former Astros bench coach Alex Cora lost his job as manager of the Boston Red Sox, and former Astros player Carlos Beltran agreed to step away from his job as the New York Mets' manager.Īdditional information could add to the fallout. Astros owner Jim Crane accepted the discipline and promptly fired Luhnow and Hinch. ![]() Ten weeks later, baseball suspended Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch and fined the Astros $5 million, the maximum allowed under baseball's constitution. In swift order, nearly everyone involved acknowledged, or at least accepted, the basic veracity of the story. It began in November, when former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers explained how the team used video cameras to steal signs and communicate them to batters. The Astros' cheating scandal has proved tidy by comparison. Brady ultimately served a four-game suspension because the NFL believed he was "generally aware" of the scheme. At worst, Deflategate was a retroactive framing of the league's most successful franchise and a future Hall of Fame quarterback, a clumsy and forgettable endeavor and an unfortunate reminder that the NFL's standard for discipline demands only that an event was "more probable than not" to have occurred. It then spent upward of $22 million over the course of two years to investigate, litigate and discipline Brady and the organization.Īt best, it was a relatively minor rules violation that no rational person would link to the Patriots' victory two weeks later in Super Bowl XLIX. The NFL thought it found proof during a surprise and unprecedented inflation check at halftime of the 2014 AFC Championship Game, a 45-7 drubbing of the Indianapolis Colts. In its zeal to preserve the perception of credible outcomes, the NFL scandalized itself with an investigation that produced far more suspicion, ill will and accusations of impropriety than the original allegations themselves.Īt its core, Deflategate suggested that the New England Patriots used an illegal process for lowering the inflation of game footballs at the behest of quarterback Tom Brady, who preferred the grip of softer balls. But I've got to laugh and remind you that five years ago today, the NFL produced a scandal that was chess to your checkers.ĭeflategate was a Jedi mind trick to your multiplication tables. It's truly awful to know that the Houston Astros swindled their way to the 2017 World Series title. Hey, baseball world: We here on the NFL side are sorry to see your game engulfed in a cheating scandal. What really happened during Deflategate? Five years later, the NFL's 'scandal' aged poorly You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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