On Thursday, the Houston Astros issued a public apology, sort of, for their sign-stealing scheme, with owner Jim Crane and star players Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman, among others, participating in the press conference.
It was, in short, a colossal failure.
“I actually couldn’t believe what I was watching,” CBS Sports HQ MLB Analyst David Samson said on After Hours with Amy Lawrence. “I thought it may have been the single worst press conference I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen an owner so unprepared and so unable to actually execute what I hoped was a better PR plan than what was actually in front of us.”
Crane, however, offered little contrition at the press conference, simply saying he had no knowledge of the sign-stealing scheme, adding, “I don’t think I should be held accountable.”
Samson, a former MLB executive, shared what he would have done differently in this situation. For starters, he would have had the entire team present for the press conference.
“[Crane] claimed he couldn’t get all the players in one place until spring training,” Samson said. “Well, if there’s a will, there’s a way – and in this instance, there has to be a way because you better have the will. I would have had on a jacket and tie. I would have had every player in full uniform. I would have had everybody – everybody – at the press conference. Literally every player, whether they were they in 2017 or not.”
Samson’s message would have been much different as well.
“I would have taken the microphone,” Samson said, “and I would have said, ‘This is what we did. This is me, the president of the team. I am the one who’s accountable for this, no matter what the report said by Commissioner Manfred. I am in charge. I am the leader. Whether I knew or not, I should have known. I should have acted long before the commissioner’s reports came out. No matter what anybody else has said, the reality is we gave ourselves an unfair advantage. We took advantage of technology in a way that was against the rules. It was against the moral compass and hurt the integrity of the game, and I promise from this day forward, there is nothing I can do to change the past, but I promise you I will change the future.’
“I would have laid out my plan to not go on an apology tour, but go on a sort of moral-compass-improving tour,” Samson continued. “I would have had the players on the same page talking right then and there as opposed to all the one-offs that happened. I would say that Jim Crane violated almost every basic principle of a press conference like that, and it was just so shocking. I almost couldn’t believe what I was watching.”
Crane also said during the press conference, "Our opinion is this didn't impact the game. We had a good team. We won the World Series and we'll leave it at that.”
Again, Samson was stunned.
“They are almost delusional,” he said. “The truth is they only are doing any of this because they got caught, and no one is willing to come forward and say just that very thing.”