Astros owner Jim Crane blasts Brian Cashman for Yankees sign-stealing comments

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman’s complaints about sign-stealing ring hollow to Astros owner Jim Crane.

In an interview with USA Today, Crane made it clear he thought it hypocritical of Cashman and the Yankees to complain about Houston’s sign stealing when they were up to similar shenanigans.

“I found his comments to be extremely strange,’’ Crane says in the USA Today story. “There’s the letter, and you were doing it, too. You were there, dude. What are you talking about?”

To be fair to Cashman, the Yankees’ sign-stealing scheme wasn’t nearly as diabolical as the Astros, which rode their trash can system to the 2017 World Series. Alicia de Artola outlined the Yankees’ transgressions for FanSided earlier this year:

"“Basically, the Yankees were found guilty of using their replay room in 2015 and 2016 to decode sign sequences and then relay them to runners on base, who would signal the batter. But that’s far away from what the Astros were hit for, which involved real-time sign-stealing delivered directly to the batter.”"

Astros: Jim Crane complains about Brian Cashman, Yankees

“If I was one of the teams, and I knew our team was doing it, I’d keep my mouth shut and just go about our business. But listen, I can only control what’s going on here. I can’t control what the other guys do.,” Crane said.

Sure, he can’t control it, but he sure can throw darts.

Since their sign-stealing scheme was debunked, the Astros have fired their general manager and manager, and haven’t won a World Series in several tries. It’s as if the baseball gods have a sense on morality, after all.

Crane does have a point in that it’s not like the Yanks are completely innocent in all of this. New York cheated, as did Boston and likely the majority of baseball, until Rob Manfred made it clear such transgressions wouldn’t be tolerated.

Said cut-off is what separates the Astros from other teams, as Houston continued cheating, and won a championship as a result.