 not take long for Jim Crane to react once the news of Major League Baseball's penalties for the Astros broke shortly thereafter. He announced the dismissals of Luno and Hinch in a press conference at Minute Maid Park where he took questions from the media following his initial remarks. Today is a very difficult day for the Houston Astros. MLB did a very thorough investigation and the Astros fully cooperated. We accept their decisions and findings and penalties. We work very hard to build this organization for our employees, fans, sponsors, community and the city to all be proud. With that being said, there's two very important points I want to make today. I have higher standards for the city and the franchise and I'm going above and beyond MLB's penalty. Today I have made the decision to dismiss AJ Hinch and Jeff Luneau. We need to move forward with a clean slate and the Astros will become stronger, a stronger organization because of this today. You can be confident that we will always do the right thing and we'll not have this happen again on my watch. Can you just go into why you decided to go ahead and fire Jeff and AJ? Well I felt that with what came out of the report, they both had responsibilities Jeff running the baseball operation and overseeing AJ and all of those people associated with that and AJ on the bench and was aware, if you read the report it's pretty clear AJ didn't endorse it and neither did Jeff, neither one of them started this but neither one of them did anything about it and that's how we came to the conclusion. I know that you said at the start that you've accepted what baseball has done. Do you feel like the punishment fit the crime? Well listen it's a stiffest penalty that any team has ever taken or given and we accept that. We're going to move forward in a positive way. I'll let the commissioner determine how he handles the rest of it. Jim does this taint the World Series Championship and what do you say to the fans right now? Well I think absolutely not. I think you know we've had a very good team for a number of years. Before 17 we were turning the corner, 18-19. We have a very good team on the field this year. You know I think we'll have a great season. Got a lot of great players still. And I don't think it taints it. Going forward do you think there can be anything like an accountability system or anything you're going to implement so something like this can never happen again? Yeah I think you know with the technology coming into the dugout as it did with the replay system you know that kind of triggered some of this and with the replays very close and sometimes even in the dugout we're going to put some checks and balances in. We're going to study the rule book and we're going to have a compliance program in place to make sure as I said earlier that this doesn't happen again. Jim in all your business dealings prior to owning the Astros now owning the Astros is this your toughest day ever? This is a tough day. I've had a lot of tough days over the year. But yeah this is this is a tough one. So amongst the things Crane said there that he doesn't feel the 2017 championship was tainted. I think people might view that differently through this prism Jack. If the cheating had happened once or twice and it was picked up and they'd stopped it I think that would be fine. They carried it through the 2017 postseason. That had a potential huge impact on them winning that title. I'm going to respectfully disagree with Jim Crane on that. It absolutely is tainted and you read the nine or ten page baseball investigation Bob. Sixty eight different witnesses were interviewed. Twenty three current or former Astros. They sifted through tens of thousands of emails and there are a lot of damning evidence in that report to tell you as you said Bob that this was a recurring thing and that this continued to go on. Luna and Hinch lost their jobs because they didn't do anything to stop it. Luna was saying he wasn't aware of it. So he should be aware of it. You're the general manager of the team. You have to be aware of that. Most general managers come down after a game and visit the manager. That's where that whole setup was. I'm sure he had to see that multiple times. And then AJ Hinch did not do enough to stop it. He said he didn't condone it. He didn't start it but he didn't do enough to stop it. So both of them losing their jobs. I think is a worthy decision. Yeah I agree with you and reading the report. I am shocked at the lack of communication between the manager AJ Hinch and the general manager Jev Luna. It just seemed like there was no communication back and forth on what was going on. And I am shocked that AJ Hinch has his reputation as a first class manager obviously won a world series but not to address your club and say listen we have to stop this. I'm not for this. I am against it. And he kept his mouth shut. Luna can say everything that he wants to say that he didn't know anything about it. You're the general manager of the team. Your job is to know about it and getting back to that world series title and if it's tainted how about we ask some of the Yankee players that were on that team members of the Yankee organization. We think back to that ALCS Houston won all four games in their home ballpark. So that tells you that if they hadn't advantage they took advantage of it and the Astros and the owner might not think it's tainted. But I'm sure that those Yankee players now are thinking when this report came out. Maybe this could have ended a little bit differently and we could have a shot at a world series. Those are some powerful statistics in that graphic right there John. And I totally agree with you. If you're the Yankees the ALCS from that season. If you're the Dodgers the World Series of course you're playing the what if game. You're going back and you're reviewing video. You're probably reviewing video going through your head and saying wait a second if I'm a pitcher. I threw a really nasty breaking pitch and that guy didn't even try and bite on it. So that's why it's tainted. Jim Crane doesn't get to decide whether he thinks it's tainted. Everyone else gets to make that decision. And trust me most people in the baseball world are absolutely going to say that was tainted. You know this is a bad day for the Houston Astros and their owner mentioned that. But I actually think about it from a wider view all of Major League Baseball. They were all warned every team was from the commissioner that this will not be allowed. And a lot of teams stopped doing what they were doing once that warning came out. The Houston Astros just ignored it and kept going about their business. I think about all the other clubs that said you know what we maybe we tried something here. We got the the warning from the commissioner and we went about our way and clean things up a little bit. Houston did not. It almost seemed like the commissioner had a little bit of maybe a little bit more angry about that how they just ignored it. And there's still a pending investigation with the Boston Red Sox. We will address that in just a minute. Time far