HOUSTON – As baseball players, including those who were participants in the 2017–18 Astros' sign-stealing scandal, return to spring training ballfields next week, former Houston manager AJ Hinch will be home for the first time in 24 springs. He is here because on Jan. 13, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred banned him for a year for failing to stop his players from cheating. Astros owner Jim Crane subsequently fired Hinch.
Three weeks after losing his place in the game, Hinch became the first person associated with the scandal to admit to it in detail and explain how wrong it was.