David Ortiz thinks the Red Sox were singled out by MLB and unfairly punished for sign stealing. Kathy Willens/Associated Press

David Ortiz wasn’t happy with the punishment Major League Baseball handed down to the Red Sox for stealing signs in 2018.

Appearing on FOX with Kevin Burkhardt and Alex Rodriguez on Friday, Ortiz said he believed MLB’s decision to strip the Red Sox of a second-round draft pick and suspend video assistant J.T. Watkins was too harsh.

“They were searching trying to find out if anything that happened in Houston happened in Boston,” Ortiz said. “Basically, it wasn’t even close to a similar situation. What happened in Boston is what everybody’s doing in the league right now. I think the punishment was not fair, to be honest with you.”

In January, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred found that the Astros used a center-field video camera to relay signs to players during games in 2017 and punished them harshly, handing one-year suspensions to then-manager A.J. Hinch and then-general manager Jeff Luhnow, stripping four draft picks and fining Houston $5 million. This week, Manfred found little in the way of wrongdoing by the Red Sox but did determine that, at least on some occasions, Watkins broke MLB rules by using the video replay room to relay signs to players during game.

“You’re going to bring a video guy, suspend him for (one year) just because he’s watching what the catchers are giving?” Ortiz continued.

“Fastball, slider, breaking ball, changeup. Telling the player so the player can use it on the field? That’s what everybody’s doing. I don’t call that cheating. I think it was more of an excuse than anything else. That’s how I feel about it.”

Ortiz and Rodriguez both said players had been trying to steal signs from the catcher during games for as long as they could remember. The introduction of more technology in baseball has led to a temptation to bend and break baseball’s rules governing the use of in-game video.

“Players try to stay ahead of the game,” Ortiz said. “It’s a hard game to play. I’m not saying that cheating is something fair, but the way players normally do it for forever, they try to pick signs from the catcher so they can pass it to the hitter.”


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