Tim Benz: Ex-Pirate Charlie Morton accepts scorn for Astros' cheating. More need to do the same.

In the wake of the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal, one player I’ve been anxiously waiting to hear from is Charlie Morton.

After his stint in Pittsburgh, Morton was traded to Philadelphia then to Houston where he ended up winning Game 7 of the 2017 World Series.

It is that 2017 edition of the Astros that has come under extreme scrutiny for its practice of stealing opposing pitching signals by way of translating real-time video feeds to someone who would bang on a trash can to alert the batter what kind of pitch was coming.

Major League Baseball found enough evidence of malfeasance that the Astros were fined $5 million and were docked their next two first- and second-round picks. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred suspended manager A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow for one season. Both were eventually fired.

Morton’s reaction was one that interested me because not only was he part of a Houston team that was found to benefit from stealing signs, he was also one who may have been a victim of the act.

Morton and his Tampa Bay Rays were losers to the Astros this year in the American League Divisional Series. And after a crackdown on livestream monitors occurred in MLB stadiums in 2018, some suspect that Astros graduated to other methods, potentially up to wearing wires to get electric signals based on what pitch was coming.

Although MLB claims it didn’t have enough evidence to support those allegations.

Last weekend Morton finally spoke about what happened in his former clubhouse.

“Personally, I regret not doing more to stop it,” Morton said in the Tampa Bay Times. “I don’t know what that would have entailed. I think the actions would have been somewhat extreme to stop it. That’s a hypothetical.

“I certainly have thought about it a lot because it negatively impacted the game, and people’s perception of the game, the fans, opposing players. And that doesn’t sit well with me. What’s wrong is wrong. And I’ll never be absolved of that.”

Morton’s regret could be seen as genuine. Or it could be perceived as hollow since it’s being expressed so long after the incidents were discovered.

Unless Morton plans on heading out to Los Angeles and throwing his World Series ring into the Pacific Ocean as a symbol of contrition to the 2017 World Series-losing Dodgers, he, like all other Astros on that team, benefited from the club’s scheme to the point of attaining the game’s ultimate glory.

Also, what did Morton’s public silence on the matter cost his current club this past October?

If Morton was more forthright publicly, or even privately through Major League back channels, about what the Astros were doing in 2017, perhaps they would’ve been less brazen about utilizing any suspected methods — wires or otherwise — in 2019.

At the very least, current A’s pitcher Mike Fiers wouldn’t have been the only one carrying the burden of being the whistleblower on the whole plan.

Morton’s admission of culpability and Fiers’ action are some of the few that have fallen under the umbrella acknowledging wrongdoing from either current or former Astros.

Another pitcher, Dallas Keuchel, now of the Chicago White Sox, got close when he said he was “sorry.” However, he also was critical of Fiers.

“It sucks to the extent (that) the clubhouse rule was broken and that’s where I’ll go with that,” Keuchel said. “I don’t really have much else to say about Mike.”

But that’s about it. Guys such as current Astros stars Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman simply sputtered out quotes such as, “The commissioner came out with a report, MLB did their report and the Astros did what they did” and “everything will be fine.”

Former Astros infielder-turned-Pittsburgh Pirate Colin Moran didn’t offer much more.

“I really didn’t have much knowledge,” Moran said at PiratesFest last month. “Most of the stuff from the commissioner’s report was kind of … what the commissioner came out with kind of spoke for itself.”

I’ll give Moran a bit of a pass. He was just a Houston rookie in 2017. And he never even took an at-bat in Minute Maid Park. So he never would’ve reaped an advantage from any sign stealing.

But another Astro-turned-Pirate Joe Musgrove is a pitcher. Part of a fraternity that was exposed by what the Astros did. Plus they traded him. And his team had to go to Houston to face the Astros last year.

Yet Musgrove gave no indication that he thinks any punishment should fall on the actual players from the Astros roster.

“Whatever you guys see in the reports, that’s the extent of what I knew,” Musgrove said at PiratesFest. “Who is to say what is fair and what is not fair in terms of suspension. Who knows. Baseball has never been through something like this before. This is kind of a first for everyone.”

When I read comments like those — or the ones White Sox catcher Kevan Smith (Pitt/Seneca Valley) gave me last month — I can’t get beyond one specific point of logic.

As Smith implied, why should we care what Houston did if the suspicion exists that so many others may have been doing something similar?

“If they get checked, then these guys are gonna start checking the other guys. And so forth. And it is going to be a domino effect.”

If so much was known about what the Astros were doing, and so much concern existed all the way through 2019 even after the increased measures against video monitoring were employed, why should there be such an outcry to suspend or ban individual players or further punish the team if so many are willing to tamp down the conversation?

If the minimal admissions of guilt by association from the likes of Fiers, Morton and Keuchel are minority examples and the majority go along with Smith’s line of thinking that, essentially, no one else wants to open the can of worms any further, why should I — or anyone else — care if further punishment is doled out after the fact?

If the aggrieved parties don’t seem to be offended, even those who were cast aside by the Astros, I’m not going to cry on their behalf.

To me the bottom line on this ongoing debate is, until I hear more consistent and serious admissions from former players in that clubhouse who are now on new teams, I’m going to bottle up any instinct I have to rail for expulsion or suspension of suspected Astros players.

After all, with the exception of those few voices outlined above, why should we care if most of the rest who have moved don’t?

Or even some of those who have been longtime foes of the team.

It appears to me that an incident Major League Baseball, its fans and its media seemed to consider unacceptable has been far too easily accepted by the Astros’ opponents.

And some of the team’s former employees.