According to some, the cheating started in 2017. According to others, it was 2015. Still others label it as 2014, when, what happened, you ask? Well, Joe Kelly was traded to an American League team.
It should be taken as no coincidence that the greatest scandal in baseball history took form in opposition to the ascent of the most dominant athlete to ever grace a pitcher’s mound. It should be viewed as no surprise that, faced with soul-engulfing fastballs and disemboweling knuckle curves, batters and their partners—video dudes—desperately forsook their morals, their dreams, and their righteousness. No one turns a good man evil like fear.
How deep did this spread? Joe Kelly’s own team is rumored to have used technology to steal signs, solely due to having to face him in batting practice in spring training. And how quickly did the rest of the league catch on? Well, just ask Christian Yelich what happened when Kelly went to the NL.
It is a great hope of ours—we being humanity—that one day, the rise of good will not be met with the rise of evil. But until then, foster that hope, for the good is still out there. And the evil has not overcome him.
