CLEVELAND, Ohio — Trevor Bauer wishes he’d been wrong in 2018 when he spoke out about alleged cheating by Houston Astros pitchers and the circumstances that eventually snowballed into a sign-stealing scandal that rocked Major League Baseball this offseason.
But Bauer wasn’t wrong, and MLB’s subsequent investigation has left a stain on the game that the ex-Indians pitcher says will be remembered longer than the Black Sox scandal or the steroid era in a new post on The Players’ Tribune.
Bauer opens by giving background on his upbringing and how it shaped his sense of what is right and wrong. More importantly, he details why when he recognizes injustices such as Astros pitchers using illegal “sticky substances” to increase spin rates on their pitches, he is compelled to speak out.
That’s exactly what led to Bauer becoming sort of a pariah in 2018 when he called out Houston hurlers for doing just that.
“I’m never going to stop sticking up for myself, or for what I think is right,” Bauer writes.
Bauer, traded from Cleveland to Cincinnati in July, writes that baseball won’t address the “sticky substances” issue unless it has to, but he estimates that “70% of pitchers in the league use some sort of technically illegal substance on the ball.”
Fast forward to this offseason, and Bauer’s reaction to the MLB investigation of the Astros sign-stealing scheme has left the mercurial righty feeling validated, but it’s sort of an empty victory.
“I was right all along, yes,” Bauer writes. “And I do feel vindicated. But I wish I had been wrong.”
Bauer goes on to write that he wants to see a “level playing field for everyone” in baseball.
“I want the game to be played with integrity,” he writes. ”And I want people to understand that even though the scandal was about what happened between the lines at Minute Maid Park, it had ripple effects that spread throughout the league, to every park and to players at every position.”
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