"I Just Want To Bang On The Garbage Can All Day"

Channeling my inner Harry Carey, I should be shouting "Holeeee Cow!"

Three (count 'em, three!) Major managers canned this week, just six weeks or so before the start of spring training.

By now, you know the story. Using cameras, smart phones and a garbage can, the Astros let their batters know what pitch was coming. Now it also has been suggested that certain players wore an electronic device on their shoulder that let them know the pitch while on the road. May explain why Jose Altuve was so adamant that his jersey remain on when the 'Stros beat the Yankees in New York.

Houston was caught cheating and was dealt with by MLB, suspending manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow for a year, fining the franchise $5 million (the maximum allowed) and stripping them of four draft picks -- their first two in the next two drafts.

The Astros -- forever to be known as the Asterisks, since that may well be attached to their 2018 World Series Championship -- took the next step and fired Hinch and Luhnow.

Guilt by association soon caught up with the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets, as both teams "mutually parted ways" with their managers.

Let's face it. In Boston, manager Alex Cora was fired. Cora, it seems, may have been the ringleader in the garbage can scandal, getting it started before leaving to manage the Red Sox. Was it just a coincidence when Boston won a World Series under him? I think not.

And along come the Mets, who just two months ago made former Astros player Carlos Beltran the manager. Not wanting the stink to hang over New York too long, the Mets fired Beltran.

Both clubs can play the we-mutually-parted-ways card, but they're not fooling anyone.

By the way, I first addressed this whole electronic cheating thing in a blog 12/13/18.

Just sayin'