Heyman: Red Sox Should Forfeit All Victories Vs. Yankees After Getting Caught Cheating
BOSTON (CBS) -- The reaction to the report of the Red Sox using an Apple Watch in the dugout as a means of relaying signs to players has been scattered, with some baseball fans up in arms and others treating it like no big deal. But Jon Heyman is going all in.
The longtime baseball columnist wrote on Fanrag Sports that the Red Sox should be forced to forfeit all eight of their victories vs. the Yankees this season. He went on Toucher & Rich on Wednesday morning to reiterate his stance.
"To me, you can't fine the Boston Red Sox enough. They print money, so that's really not a deterrent for future cheating," Heyman said. "I would have them forfeit the games against the Yankees this year. We'd have to conduct the investigation and I'd have to know exactly how much this went on. But from what the initial reports are ... if it's what it seems to be, yes I would have them forfeit the games that they won against the Yankees this year."
For the record, the Red Sox went 8-11 vs. New York this year.
"I'm just very much against cheating. Obviously there's a lot of cheating in sports, but I think we kind of do too much wrist-slapping here. You gotta try to win the World Series on the up and up. And this is ridiculous," Heyman said.
Fred Toucher and Rich Shertenlieb brought up the fact that a team has never been punished by having victories taken away, therefore this would be the greatest violation in baseball history.
"Well, you know, people have accused me of being a liberal, but when it comes to rules, I guess I'm a law and order person," Heyman said. "This is their second offense, and again I'm not blaming [Dave] Dombrowski for either one of them, but using technology ... I think they should be embarrassed rather than saying, 'Oh, look at the other team.'"
As for the Red Sox' filing a counterclaim that the Yankees were using a YES Network feed for doing the same thing?
"First of all, it didn't come from a team that's a multiple-time offender," Heyman said, in reference to the Red Sox getting in trouble for violating some international signing rules. "Also if it came before they were caught [it would be more valid]. I do give [the Red Sox] credit for admitting; they are honest cheaters. They did admit this; they did the same with the international [violation]. ... But just to say, 'OK, they're cheaters too,' or 'They leaked the story' or throwing stuff out there, that doesn't do much for me."
In his column, Heyman wrote that the violation was not quite as severe as the Patriots with DeflateGate and Spygate, "where practices were surreptitiously videotaped by the Patriots."
Rich saw that line jump out as if it had been written in red pen.
"Which practices were videotaped by the Patriots?" Rich asked.
"Maybe I'm not a football expert. Is that incorrect?" Heyman asked.
"That's something you might want to do a little background check on," Rich said. "That's a pretty big allegation."
"I don't mean to many any new allegations regarding the football team," Heyman replied. "I don't cover football. Nobody should be upset about what I say about football."
Bringing it back to the call for unprecedented punishment, Heyman said, "If you cheated, you shouldn't really prosper, in my opinion. I'm sorry to tell you that. You guys obviously -- and we'll see what MLB thinks -- maybe I'm the harshest there is out there. To me, you guys should be appalled by what the team did, not worrying about if they're going to lose a game here or there.
"I may end up on the side that's too harsh and I'll have people that disagree with me. I can see that," he continued. "A lot of people look the other way. I do not do that. I am not a fan of the steroid users, I'm not a fan of any of it. I do understand that gamesmanship is a part of the game but not using Steve Jobs' technology and stealing from him, too. I don't like any of that."
Listen to the full interview above!