 Doesn't seem like it's going away. And Andrew, he loves this stuff. He broke off the Astros against off-speed pitches in 2017. And I think that's where the value of sign stealing comes, because when you see a guy that could spit on an off-speed pitch or sit on one, either way, you know that they're getting those signs. The batting average against off-speed pitches in 2017 was 254, best in the majors. They're OPS 715, best in the majors. Strikeouts, 567, best in the majors. Swing and miss percent, it's 28% best in the majors. Now, you can make the argument. I'm sure the Astros, no, we have a great team, not that great. Not that great. Now, the owner's meetings are going on right now. And the reason why this becomes a topic again, there's a lot of tension. So Jim Crane was sitting at the hotel on the owner's meetings and had two police officers standing next to him and would not let anybody from any news gathering organization, ESPN, Writers, whatever, no one could go near him. Then when he's walking through the lobby, he says to the reporters who descend upon him, if you want to talk about baseball, talk about baseball, I'm not going to talk about anything else. Well, what do you think we're talking about? Bagging groceries, this is baseball. What happened with the cheating is baseballs. So I'm allowed to ask you about that. So then it looked like he was annoyed. And if you've ever seen Jim Crane, you don't want to mess with Jim Crane. No. Behind his eyes, you don't want to mess with Jim Crane. I would not mess with Jim Crane. Well, give me an example. I can't, it's just a feel. I can think of one. I don't think you want to go public with it, but we're thinking along the same lines. No, I don't know what you're talking about. There's somebody that you believe that I always say that I could beat up, and you say, no, no, no. No, this is worse. Worse? This is worse. Yeah. So he's crazy. No, I'm not even saying he's crazy. There's something there that is like a take no prisoners thing. And you can see how successful he was in business. Don't mess with this dude. So when it looked like he didn't want to be bothered, all of a sudden the police officers reappeared and ushered him up the steps to a meeting of the owners. Well, yesterday Rob Manfred did talk. And for those that want the Astros punished badly, I will tell you this. He certainly gave you reason to think that that's going to be happening. Here is Manfred saying this isn't the first time that they've looked into this. We have, over time, monitored various rumors that you hear throughout the industry, made preliminary investigations, tried to satisfy ourselves that we knew exactly what's going on, but certainly not with the depth and detail that came out in the article. So what's the timeline, Rob? I mean, I don't have a firm timeline. I think that it's really important that we be as thorough as possible to make sure we know everything that went on to the extent that that's possible. And I certainly would hope that we would be done before we start playing baseball. He's taking these allegations seriously. Any allegation that relates to a rule violation that could affect the outcome of a game or games is the most serious matter. It relates to the integrity of the sport. In terms of where we are, we have a very active, what is going to be a really, really thorough investigation ongoing. But beyond that, I can't tell you how close we are to Doug. And finally, he isn't going to speculate on when the investigation will be done. I'm not going to speculate on what the appropriate discipline is. That depends on how the facts are established at the end of the investigation. The general warning that I issued to the clubs, I stand by. I mean, it certainly could be all those things, but my authority under the Major League Constitution would be broader than those things as well. I have no reason to believe that it extends beyond the Astros at this point in time. Well, let's put it this way. He can't speculate. We can't. So what is the proper punishment if, in fact, they did these things? So I was listening to Bob with shoes and driving, and he was filling in for Stephen A. And he brought up the Patriots, Don and Peter, where he said that the penalties against the Patriots in their two cheating scandals didn't do enough. The first one was like $750,000 to the owner, and Belichick, and then a first round draft pay. And then there was more money with the Flakegate, the suspension of Brady, and then a first round draft pick. It hasn't even been a speed bump to the greatness of the Patriots. Hasn't it been a speed bump so you could take the tack and say, well, they don't need to cheat to win, or they're just finding a different way to cheat because the penalties were not scary enough for them to just stop and go clean. So what is the penalty that would stop other owners in the tracks? I thought about this a lot. I don't think there's an easy answer. Answer, I don't know why that came out that way, but that'll be a drop. Wow. I just, I read somewhere yesterday that when a team wins the World Series, you can pretty much calculate $70 million in profit. OK. $50 million, $50 million fine to claim. Really make it hurt them, because a million dollars to an owner whose franchises were $2 to $3 billion, they laugh at that. That would be like if Don got fined $100. A million dollars is laughable. $50 million? I'm sure that even Jeff Bezos would feel $50 million. I do well. So I think you have to start there. And this is where it gets really, really dicey. Yes. I think if Hinch is aware of this and signing off on it and Loonow, they've got to be suspended for at least a year. I agree. I'm a little bit scared to say they can never be in baseball again. Nobody a year, I think, is fair. But I just don't know what to do with players. It's hard to discipline players, because they are going to, in fact, have the Players Association at their disposal. And according to the collective bargaining agreement, you can't just suspend people willy-nilly. Now here's the part that does scare me, though. If you're going to bang Hinch, then you're going to have to bang Cora and Beltran. You just are. Wait, why? Because Cora was his bench coach. But Beltran was his player. But the sources that are talking to the athletic are saying that those are the two masterminds behind the plan. I guess if it's a full-on mastermind, yeah. I mean, if you find out that this thing exists solely because of those three individuals, Hinch, Cora, Beltran, then I guess they should get the harshest of penalties, and they should be suspended a year. I don't think there's an easy answer. Now the players, are you as wrong as the mastermind that you knew this was happening and said, well, what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to go to the league and tell them that my own teammates are cheating? Do I? Should I go and tell my guys, listen, this is cheating. I don't give me the information. I don't want to know about it. Bang the drum out in the crowd all you want. I'm not going to pay attention to it. I mean, how are you going to be able to determine that? I don't know. I mean, now you can go to the Kennesaw Mountain Land as theory on the Black Sox scandal 100 years ago where he suspended the eight players, not suspended, kicked them out of the game. Forever. And said that, and just outlined it, anybody that participates or anybody that knew about it and didn't say something about it, didn't alert their club about it, never plays in baseball again. So does he want to be that broad and say, listen, anybody that participated in this in any level, I'm sorry, it's cheating. You're going to have to get disciplined. They all get a year. That's where it gets a little dicey for me. Now, the thing that I laughed off when we talked about it, Peter and Don brought it up as well. I think I've come back to the side of you should do it. If they're found guilty of this, then their championship should be taken away. I know that's just a nominal thing, but it's an embarrassment to the franchise. They can never call themselves 2017 world champions. Doesn't mean that you give it to the Dodgers. Doesn't mean that they say that he's actually, no, the Astros can no longer be a champion in their media guide and all the record books and baseball, you take that away because they got it with O'Gotten Games. Yeah, I would. You have to. It has to be gone now. You just can't count. I was the same way with you because in college it just seemed to be silly, but I don't see any other way around this. I mean, what do you do? What do you do with the MVP for Altuva? You know, because you got to replay the whole year. It's the only thing you can do. You start at the beginning. What have you played out on a video game from the very beginning? I mean, is that stradomatic? Yeah, listen, maybe that's the punishment. I mean, do you sit there and go, listen, since we can't really suspend the players because we just don't know the level of which they were involved or how much they were involved, but clearly they knew what was going on. You vacate 2017 in every way, shape or form, meaning any awards that were won, like the MVP stripped from Altuva. Yeah, but you didn't take the MVPs away from Bonds and the Siams away from Clemens. All right, so does that mean because of the mistakes of the past? That's a different commissioner. But those are baseball writers' awards. The commissioner can't tell the baseball writers to take their awards back. Okay, then maybe what we can, maybe you can do is whatever monetary gain those awards got, like did Altuva get a bonus because he won the MVP, then that's his fine. Would you want to find to be their salary? Meaning whatever you made in 2017, you now have to forfeit. I mean, this is the last thing that Rob Manford wants on his board. Now the player association may not allow that to happen. Right. Because you already have like how much you can find somebody and suspend somebody. So this is not collectively bargained. So I'm not even sure they'd be able to get away with anything. Now, let me throw this at you because I thought about this a lot as well. Is this worse than PDs? Or is PDs worse than this? No, this is worse, Michael, because even though we all believe that everybody was doing it, this has to be more wide ranging than the PDs. And this is also institutional. This is a team that did it, including management. If I have two or three people that are PD guys, should my title be vacated, but if I had something that was designed by the team and they benefited from it all year long and all the offensive players did it, knew it, didn't say anything about it, isn't it worse? I've got to ask David Cohn this. Either we'll have him on the show at some point about it or I'll just text him or call him and ask him, would you rather face a guy who's roided up to the gills at the plate doesn't know what you're throwing? Or would you rather face a guy who has no roids in the system at all and knows exactly what you're throwing? I think he'd rather face the roid guy. Well, because I could still strike him out, right? I could still fool him and strike him out, but if he knows what's coming. So you can say that that's almost worse? It's bad. I mean, it's really bad. They're all bad. I don't think anybody gets a pass on this. They're all bad. Now, how about the ultimate death penalty for Crane? Do you pull a Donald Sterling on it and say you have to sell the team? No, he would have the shame of having to sell the team, but he'd make an incredible profit. He bought it for 700 million. Probably could sell it for three billion right now. Okay, slap on the hand, but he doesn't have the Astros anymore. Would you even think about that? I mean, if you give him a $50 million fine, that should be enough. And then you say that if anything like this ever happens, again, you're forced to sell the team. It is a first offense, right? They've been rumored to be doing this. I mean, they are an organization that is loaned by other teams. Bad job by Major League Baseball to wait this long to finally do it. And the only reason of doing it, I give the athletic credit. If this comes down, the athletic gets total credit. They're the ones who broke this. They're the ones who got Mike Fires to go on the record and say it. But it still would be a first time offense. So should he be allowed that second chance like everyone else? Where, and if you gotta sell the team, $50 million fine and if you do it again, you're out. I think I'd be happy. I think you lay it down this way. $50 million fine for the owner, manager, general manager suspended a year. And then you figure out what you can get away with with the player association. But if you could, players had the forfeit their salary 2017. Well, I don't think that one's gonna be the hardest to do because of the union. But think about this. George Steinbrenner got suspended from baseball for life. Right. Now he ended up getting back two years later, but suspended for life. He signed away. He's still on the team, but he had no control over it supposedly, right? And he paid somebody to get dirt on his player. Now in terms of baseball, to me, this is way worse. So do you want us to spend him for life with a chance to, for reinstatement in two years, five years, could you do that? Where he doesn't sell the team. He just, he doesn't, he's just banned from baseball, right? George still on the team, right? Yep. He just couldn't be around the ballpark. Would that, would that do anything to Crane? Would it kill him to not be able to go to the ballpark? Not be able to be associated with a team other than the cash checks? Now I said it kind of cryptically about, you know, Crane, I think I've told the story. If not, I'm glad I'm telling it again. And if I have told it, then I apologize. David Cohn and I were doing a series against the Astros, Yankees Astros at Yankee Stadium. And this was when the Astros were tanking and they were bad. Those four years where they were, they had the lowest payroll, they broke everything down to get high draft picks, keep the payroll low. And we made some comments about the process. And the next day, this is at Yankee Stadium where he has no, you know, whatever you'd like to say, he walks into our booth before a game with a list of items. And he had his PR guy with him and started telling the two of us what we got wrong. I mean, talk about Cognonis. Yeah, I think Cajones is the word. It's amazing. Yeah. Talk about Kutzpa, right? Is that what we said yesterday? I think it was Chutzpa. No, Chutzpa. I mean, think about the cubes on this guy. And he's talking to David Cohn who won a Cy Young Award, has five World Series rings. And we were like, we're being polite and respectful. You know, he's in order of a team. They said, okay, thanks. And like, even the next day was, well, you didn't quite, sorry, we're not doing the broadcast for you, Mr. Crane. But that's who Jim Crane is. He's a control guy. Well, that would probably, probably would bother him if he had to be away from baseball for any length of time. I've said it before and I'll say it again. They have to lean on the side of too rough rather than too lenient. They cannot allow this to happen again. They, anybody doing it, it's gonna have to immediately stop. So the Patriot penalty where the organization gets fined $500,000 or those, well, the Patriots are fined $250, Belichick was fined $500, and they lost like a first round pick, but it was like lottery protected, right? It was like a first round pick, but if they missed the playoffs, it became a second round pick. It's gotta be tougher than that, Michael. It's gotta be, because I think this is worse. You've got to hand down a penalty that every person that's kind of like straddling that line, cheating a gamesmanship, that they get scared straight where an owner will say he'll go down to his GM and his manager and say, listen, I'm not paying $50 million for your shenanigans. You win the right way. That will stop it dead. If you hand down a penalty that is so severe that you scare the other team straight, then that's mission accomplished. I don't know if the NFL did that with the Patriots. They certainly didn't do it with the Patriots to the point that the Patriots wouldn't do it again. But there's a lot of things involved there where the NFL probably didn't have a lot of motivation to completely destroy the Patriots because there were allegations that everybody in the league was doing this. The Patriots just got caught. You heard Manfred say he has every reason to believe this is the only team doing it, that this is just an astro situation. So doesn't that make it where the MLB doesn't have to protect itself from exposing other teams or making it look like there's multiple world series there in question here? If this is just a one-time astro thing, then you really gotta pulverize them. You have no choice. Yes, there's a lot on Manfred's plate right now. Remember one thing, when you're disciplining an owner, this is why this is such an odd thing. If people talk about it with Godel and with Silver, you're disciplining one of your bosses. He's that employee of Rob Manfred. Rob Manfred is an employee of the 30 owners in baseball. Jim Crain's one of his bosses. So he's gonna have the support of the other owners, too. See, that's the thing. If the 29 of their owners are saying, you gotta do something to this guy. Right, and I don't think that this guy has a lot of allies because he's not that low. And that's why I say that's the difference between this and the Patriots because Robert Kraft and the Patriots have a lot of sway around the NFL. They've got a huge fan base because of all the championships they won. Michael, where are the complaints gonna come outside of Houston proper? When we do this, we get a litany of phone calls from people saying, I'm a longtime Astro fan. This is ridiculous. No, it's not a thing. Let's hear from you, 1-800-919-