While LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers lead the Western Conference by four games with the second half of the 2019-20 NBA season about to commence, the biggest story in sports is coming out of the MLB.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is under fire for granting full immunity to members of the Houston Astros, who admitted to cheating during the 2017 season that ended with them winning the World Series.
This scandal has absolutely rocked the baseball world as players from all over the sport have criticized Manfred for giving zero punishments to players who openly cheated to win the game’s biggest prize. In addition to this, the Astros’ cheating affected the careers of countless players including the 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers.
Now, the critiques are reaching beyond the MLB as James commented on the issue, via Twitter:
Listen I know I don’t play baseball but I am in Sports and I know if someone cheated me out of winning the title and I found out about it I would be F*^king irate! I mean like uncontrollable about what I would/could do! Listen here baseball commissioner listen to your…..
— LeBron James (@KingJames) February 18, 2020
James continued by putting pressure on Manfred to punish the team for the sake of the integrity of all sports:
players speaking today about how disgusted, mad, hurt, broken, etc etc about this. Literally the ball(
) is in your court(or should I say field) and you need to fix this for the sake of Sports! #JustMyThoughtsComingFromASportsJunkieRegardlessMyOwnSportIPlay
— LeBron James (@KingJames) February 18, 2020
Manfred has now received scathing words from both James (who is arguably basketball’s best player) and Mike Trout (who is baseball’s best player). This is in addition to countless others like Cody Bellinger and Yu Darvish.
Manfred is now facing likely the most important decision of his career and it could have a ripple effect on not just baseball, but the whole sports world. If cheating only to be granted full immunity just to tell the truth about said cheating becomes the precedent, then there’s absolutely nothing stopping other players from doing the same thing.