Keep up the heat on cheating Astros

It would be great to swap salaries.

Other than that, though, I’m not sure I’d want Rob Manfred’s gig anytime soon.

The commissioner of Major League Baseball must feel like the captain of the Titanic, having just heard: “Uh, sir, we may have sprung a leak.”

Well, no, it was actually a mighty gash — and there’s water pouring into the dugout.

The Houston Astros cheating scandal is not going away, no matter how many “apologies” or press conferences are used to try plugging that hole.

Even worse, it seems as though some Astros have decided to go on the offensive, insisting that OK, the manager and GM were fired…

Now leave us alone to play baseball.

Manfred seems to have gone along with that idea.

You know, gee…

It was wrong, but we’ve punished a couple people so, hey, let’s play ball.

THE ASTROS must know they will take a battering from fans in every city from this point forward.

There’s still a lot of talent on that team, so they’ll probably circle the wagons, go with the feeling that the world is against them, and maybe even play better baseball.

Absolutely no one outside that clubhouse will care.

Think about it.

There are youth leagues all over America who have banned the name Astros.

Scott Ostler, a veteran columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, made an excellent point.

All it would have taken, Ostler wrote, was for someone like Jose Altuve or Alex Bregman to stand up and say: ““Fellas, have you ever seen Shoeless Joe Jackson’s induction plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame?”

I don’t think the Astros actually realize it, the notion that they will be remembered forever as the team that stole a World Series by banging on a trash can.

MANFRED says there was no way to punish the players, because the critical priority was to establish the truth — and to do that, the players had to be given immunity.

Nonsense.

You’re the commissioner, with the power to call in any Astros player and say: “Explain exactly what happened, or you’ll be banned for life!”

Once the first five or six terrified players gave accounts that tallied up, you’d have had the facts you needed to take action.

First off, every member of that Astros roster should be suspended for a year.

Let Houston play with minor leaguers this season.

I know, some players supposedly did not participate in the cheating scheme.

But they knew.

They had to know.

It’s tough to bang a garbage can in secret.

After the suspensions, Mr. Commissioner, the 2017 American League and World Series championships HAVE to be vacated.

That knucklehead owner, Jim Crane, should be forced to carry the trophies back to New York — on his knees, preferably.

Sorry to sound so harsh, but I love baseball — and I’ve covered thousands of major league games.

In their arrogance, the Astros spit on our game.

Every last one deserves to be punished.

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Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball each Tuesday.

Steve’s various tales from several decades in sports — “Moments, Memories and Madness” — run on Sundays.