By Toby Srebnik for LVSportsBiz.com
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – On Saturday, I took my son with me to a Spring Training game unlike any other we had ever attended. On this evening, to kick off Grapefruit League action in the state of Florida, the defending American League Champion Houston Astros (the evening’s home team) were facing the 2019 World Series Champion Washington Nationals at the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, the stadium the two teams have shared since 2017.
We had been looking forward to this game since purchasing tickets a month before. We had always intended on going to the game, but the events of Jan. 13 put this particular game on a whole new level for so many reasons.
Jan. 13 was the date MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the Astros had illegally used a video camera to steal signs during their World Series Championship season in 2017 and parts of 2018. Although no players were suspended due to immunity in order to get information from them, Houston GM Jeff Luhnow and Houston Manager A.J. Hinch were suspended for the 2020 season (and both were fired shortly thereafter) while the team was fined $5 million and forfeited their top two draft picks in 2020 and 2021. In addition, two former players implicated in the scandal, Boston Red Sox Manager Alex Cora and New York Mets Manager Carlos Beltran, were both fired from their positions as well.
In the month prior to its Feb. 13 press conference when the full team had arrived to start practicing for Spring Training, nearly every sports columnist in the country not based in Houston and nearly every sports fan on social media not based in Houston took the Astros to task for doing what they did. In my opinion, rightfully so.
However, when teams and businesses are in crisis mode, how they handle themselves in their first public response following a crisis often determines how quickly the storm blows away. Given that the Astros had a full 30 days to prepare for their Feb. 13 press conference shortly after the team arrived to begin workouts in West Palm Beach, it was reasonable to assume the team would have a strong plan in place devised by an agency that specializes in Crisis PR.
Almost two weeks later, the PR professional in me is still flabbergasted by what took place on Feb. 13.
The Astros chose to stage a press conference with owner Jim Crane and new manager Dusty Baker facing the press, followed by star players Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman spending a combined 90 seconds giving a less-than-contrite apology.
However, it was the Astros owner’s response to this ESPN reporter as shown in this tweet that made the rounds throughout social media and elsewhere. Check it out here.
It was as if Crane paid for advice on how to respond to the media, and then when the time came to face the music, they didn’t follow whatever the advice they had been given (nor would they have had new manager Dusty Baker anywhere near a microphone since he wasn’t even part of the team during those seasons). There’s simply no way a Crisis PR firm would have allowed a press conference without sincere contrition. Whether the owner and players are truly sorry, they did not sound truly sorry; that, in itself, may be the ultimate sin.
Against this backdrop, my son and I arrived Saturday 3 ½ hours before the 6:05 p.m. game time to visit the practice fields for both teams. On the way to the Nationals side, I did see several Astros fans that seemed to be waiting for the team store to open. While watching the Nationals practice, my son waited to meet some players while I made my way back to the Astros’ side.
Unlike the Nationals, who began practicing 3 ½ hours prior to gametime (and something the Astros have done previously in other games we attended in West Palm Beach), when I got to the Astros gate at 2:45, I was told the gate was closing at 3 p.m. In the 15 minutes I was there, Astros fans were making their way out while I was searching the fields. Any players who had been practicing were gone. The Astros appear to have started their warmups before the gates were open at 2 p.m.and only gave fans in attendance maybe 40 minutes of access pregame. Why wouldn’t you mirror the Nationals hours?
Also, while we knew Washington had two starters from last season in their scheduled starting lineup (Victor Robles and Juan Soto, along with future Hall-of-Famer Max Scherzer as the starting pitcher), the Astros lineup trickled out at about 4 p.m. with a whimper. Not a single everyday starter from 2019 nor Justin Verlander. No Altuve. No Bregman. No Carlos Correa. At some point, optics come into play from a PR sense. By not having any of the key players in this game’s lineup, it sent a message that the players still weren’t ready to face the music of fans or media in a game setting.
For everything Houston continued to do wrong pregame, Washington did everything right. Their players signed autographs and took selfies with fans. My son got selfies with top prospect Carter Kieboom and World Series Hero Howie Kendrick while I got one with Manager Davey Martinez, who spent a good 20 minutes signing every last autograph and posing for every last selfie.
As the Associated Press reported stadium staff confiscated several signs from a fan that poked fun at the sign stealing scandal, even though it was an Astros home game, the players who were in the lineup were booed when they took the field. Even Orbit the Astros Mascot was booed. While there were more Washington fans in attendance, this felt like the kind of reaction the Astros can expect all season long everywhere but home.
I surprisingly did see three signs on the berm from a young fan that were NOT confiscated: “You’re Still the One I want – With You on the Highs – With You on the Lows”, “Altuve is Still My MVP”, “This Too Shall Pass”. These signs just reinforce not everyone feels the same way about what Houston did. However, from a purely PR standpoint, they had an opportunity to put a lot of this to bed on February 13 and managed to make it worse (and have still not reeled it in).
As for the game, my son fired off this tweet after the Astros’ first batter of the season struck out, which caused me to chuckle when I saw it:
Following the second inning, a rainstorm came through and caused the game to be cancelled. Sensing how the reaction will be the rest of this season, the Astros may be rooting for a lot of rain to fall.
Toby Srebnik is manager of public relations and communications for Truly Nolen Pest Control and has been with the company since 2015. He has spent 19 years in the Public Relations industry as well as 12 years in the Social Media industry and is the only person who is both a past president of the Public Relations Society of America’s Greater Fort Lauderdale and Greater Palm Beach Chapters. In 2019, Srebnik was honored with PRSA Greater Fort Lauderdale’s Wizard PR Award for Communicator of the Year. Srebnik can also be heard on the all-new Pitch to the Rhino Podcast with co-founders Jose Boza & Jarret Streiner: Episode 0 discussing “Where Sports and Social Media Collide” is now available on Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/