With revelations this week that the Boston Red Sox reportedly used cameras to gain advantages during games in the 2018 season, it’s become clear that Major League Baseball has a mess on its hands that extends far beyond whatever the Houston Astros were doing to allegedly cheat.



And while the purported system the Red Sox used to decode signs and tip off would-be baserunners on its face appears to be less egregious than the Astros’ alleged system of stealing signs and relaying them to hitters in real time, MLB now finds itself in an unwinnable situation where it will have to investigate every team accused, identify and rank varying degrees of cheating and dole out punishments that are likely to satisfy no one.



But before we get into the penalty phase of the biggest league-wide scandal since revelations of rampant steroid use rocked the sport 15 years ago, it’s worth examining how we got here.



The reason we are mired in this fiasco is that MLB...