Darvish: Were the Astros Reading my MIND? HAHA
CHICAGO, IL — When news of the Astros’ sign stealing scandal reached veteran Chicago Cubs pitcher, Yu Darvish, the grizzled veteran was at a loss for words. His eyes closed as he attempted to internally process the news that would take the MLB by storm…
To Darvish, this was more than just the biggest scandal professional baseball has seen since the Biogenesis affair in 2013. This was personal. The lanky Japanese pitcher was shelled by the Astros during each of his two starts, including Game 7, of the 2017 World Series. After the series, an unknown member of the Astros attributed his team’s success against Darvish due to the pitcher’s tendency to “tip his pitches.” Darvish’s terrible performance in the World Series led to his abrupt departure from the franchise, which went on to appear in a second straight World Series without him.
The revelations of Houston’s’ cheating is another blackeye on the reputation of the MLB. The league has long struggled to ensure fair competition between its franchises in the post-steroid era. Besides the heat the league has taken over the scandal, there is an incalculable number of human casualties that accompany Houston’s sign stealing operation. Joe Girardi might still be the manager of the Yankees if his team beats the Astros in the 2017 ALCS. The sports industry is all about the bottom line: winning. We will never know just how many people’s careers were ruined or disrupted by a team that utilized an unfair advantage to propel their success. For Yu Darvish, this exposé offers him a chance at personal and professional redemption.
Just like the rest of the sports world, he was in disbelief. But there was a part of him, buried beneath the battered ego and loser’s guilt that always knew.
“I watched the film over and over again. I didn’t tip anything. But they KNEW — THEY KNEW what I was going to throw before I did, haha. How could they have possibly known? Yes, that is the question I kept asking myself. That question DROVE ME INSANE. I would stare — stare at my ceiling late at night trying to think of how they always knew. I wondered if they had a mole in our building that was stealing our game plans and signs right from under our noses. So, I did some digging, Ha-Ha digging to find a mole… But it was a cold trail, ice cold trail, yes, yes. Not good for Yu’s health, not one bit. Then I wondered if they flew drones over our practices and recorded everything that way, but no no no that would be too simple, indeed. Plus no one I contacted ever reported seeing any drones. Then the crazy thoughts came, yes the nibblers… The ones that keep on nibbling at your brain, you see. The nibblers wouldn’t let me sleep… they never stopped biting, except for when they would whisper… dark things… ‘Chicago’s too good for you, Yu, you belong in Pittsburgh after what you did, or should I say, didn’t do HAHAH.’ The nibblers told me the Astros had put them in my brain while I was sleeping. They gave away all my thoughts to their Texas masters. They betrayed me *sobs* and they were my friends… So, I’m glad this news came out before I did something really crazy. Something that Might. Have. Hurt. Yu. But also gotten rid of the dark ones ha-ha.”
We will never know the true human cost that the Astros’ cheating has inflicted on the league, but the damage is more than dollars and cents. It remains to be seen how the MLB will punish the organization.
