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Applegate? Red Sox charged with using smart watches to steal signs from Yankees

Bill Koch, @BillKoch25
Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski speaks at a news conference before Tuesday's game. [The Associated Press]

BOSTON — More than a century has passed and the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is still generating new twists.

The latest bit of drama between the storied adversaries came off the field, with the New York Times reporting Tuesday that Boston had admitted to improperly using an electronic device to steal signs from New York and other opponents. 

The Times report said the Red Sox employed an Apple Watch to gain an unfair advantage in a series at Fenway Park from Aug. 18-20, naming Boston assistant trainer Jon Jochim, outfielder Chris Young, second baseman Dustin Pedroia and utility man Brock Holt as the principles involved. The Times alleged Jochim relayed signals to Holt and Pedroia but did not specify Young’s alleged role.

“Aware of the rule — electronic devices are not to be used in the dugout,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said. “Beyond that, the only thing I can say is it’s a league matter at this point.”

New York general manager Brian Cashman filed a formal complaint with Major League Baseball officials, one since responded to by a Boston claim the Yankees used their own YES Network to steal signs as well. Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski spoke at a hastily convened press conference before Tuesday night’s game against Toronto, followed by Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred.

“We’ve completely complied with the commissioner’s office on everything they’ve asked,” Dombrowski said. “This is not new. This is something that’s been going on for 10 or 12 days.” 

“We are 100 percent comfortable that it is not an ongoing issue,” Manfred said. “If it happened, it is no longer happening.”

Manfred said he was confident any investigation would be completed before the end of the regular season. He declined to speculate an appropriate punishment but said vacating any Boston victories as a result of the potential findings would be unprecedented. 

“I think you need to think about deterrence,” Manfred said. “I think you need to think about how the violation has affected play on the field. I think you need to think about how it’s affected the perception of the game publicly.” 

To his recollection, Dombrowski’s 40-year career in baseball has included “maybe 10” instances of sign stealing in which he’s been personally involved. He smiled frequently while taking questions for about 10 minutes, even laughing on a couple of occasions like a young child whose hand has been caught in the proverbial cookie jar. 

“No, I’ve never thought it’s wrong,” Dombrowski said. “Everybody in the game has been involved with it throughout the years. It’s an edge. People are trying to win however they can.”

Manfred — who was visiting Boston on an unrelated matter — said the league’s department of investigations is handling the inquiry. Bryan Seeley, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., serves as the league’s head of investigations. Seeley was hired in 2014 to run the unit created thanks to a recommendation by former Maine senator George Mitchell, whose 2008 Mitchell Report named or connected almost 90 players to the use of performance enhancing drugs. 

“I take any issue that affects the play of the game on the field extremely seriously,” Manfred said. “I do believe that this is a charged situation from a competitive perspective.”

According to Manfred, it’s unusual for a situation like this involving two franchises to become so public. Since his appointment to replace the retiring Bud Selig in January 2015, Manfred said he “generally has heard” of club executives resolving similar disputes through a courtesy phone call from one executive to another. Dombrowski suggested — perhaps tongue in cheek, perhaps not — that the Yankees had purposely leaked the news to the Times to coincide with Manfred’s appearance in Boston. 

“The Yankees decided they wanted to give it to (the Times) today for whatever reason,” Dombrowski said. “It just so happened the commissioner was in town today. I’m not sure there’s a direct correlation to this.”

“We would prefer not to have these sorts of issues at all,” Manfred said. “To the extent that we have them, we would prefer to investigate them, deal with them privately and be done with them.” 

Boston entered Tuesday night with just a 2½ game lead in the American League East, with New York taking three out of four over the weekend at Yankee Stadium to close the gap. The two teams don’t meet again on the field during the regular season, but Dombrowski and Cashman could find themselves summoned to the commissioner’s office for a formal sitdown to hash out their latest flashpoint.

Red Sox fans did plenty of grumbling over the weekend about the lack of swift discipline for several New York players involved in an ugly brawl at Detroit on Aug. 24. Most notably, catcher Gary Sanchez played on after appealing his four-game suspension for fighting and relief pitcher Dellin Betances was not fined or suspended for hitting Tigers’ catcher James McCann in the head with a pitch. Sanchez went 7-for-18 with a home run and four runs batted in against Boston while Betances worked in the first and fourth games of the series.

The primary object of Red Sox Nation’s consternation? Former Yankees manager Joe Torre, who has served as the league’s chief baseball officer since leaving the dugout in 2011. Torre guided New York to four World Series championships during a tenure that lasted from 1996-2007, including victories over Boston in the 1999 and 2003 American League Championship Series. 

“Often — often — these matters are scheduled before they get to hearing,” Manfred said. “I see the Sanchez thing as standard operating procedure.”

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