As the NBA continues to consider dramatic changes to the league calendar, it no longer plans to stage an owner's vote in April on a formal plan, league sources told ESPN.

The NBA informed its teams on Friday that it wants to continue studying and discussing the three significant items, including an in-season tournament, a play-in tournament and the reseeding of the conference finalists, sources said. The NBA had hoped to have the two-thirds majority needed to make these changes for the 2021-2022 season -- the league's 75th anniversary -- and still hope despite no April vote that there's a way that might be possible, sources said.

The NBA has been discussing variations of these ideas with teams, the NBPA and television partners, and will continue to do so with hopes of making a presentation to the Board of Governors in three months.

Among the concerns, there is still no consensus on the best time for the 30 team in-season tournament that would include pool play and a knock-out round. There had been momentum around a tournament starting near Thanksgiving and extending into mid-December, and there's been some recent momentum for a tournament starting around Christmas through mid-January, sources said.

Commissioner Adam Silver has been driving this agenda of change -- especially the in-season tournament cup modeled after European soccer -- for years. The NBA is selling the idea of lucrative television and sponsorship revenue that would drive long-term growth and combat stagnation in a rapidly splintering consumer environment.

Travel remains a primary concern on the re-seeding of the Eastern and Western Conference finals, an element of the broader proposal that has the least collective support, sources said. Research has shown that travel could be increased by 60 percent in the conference finals with the proposal that would allow finalists in the East and West to play outside their conference.

The prospective calendar change includes a reduction in regular season games to 78 to accommodate the in-season-tournament and play-in games and large market owners are concerned that the loss of those home gates could come at a net financial less, sources said. The NBA is hopeful that a sustained plan over the long-term could drive new revenue streams to mitigate those losses.

FRANK VOGEL WAS introduced as the Los Angeles Lakers' head coach in the midst of a profoundly bizarre week for the franchise. And it was about to get even stranger.

Last May, alongside general manager Rob Pelinka, Vogel took the podium on the team's practice court. Just hours earlier, Magic Johnson had accused Pelinka of backstabbing him during his rocky tenure as the Lakers' president, a post Johnson had relinquished the previous month during an impromptu hallway resignation. Johnson's departure was soon followed by the firing of Luke Walton and a public search for his replacement -- another chapter in a Lakers saga that had grown more theatrical with each passing month.

Pelinka hadn't appeared before the media since these events, lending what would normally be a pro forma occasion an air of suspense. So after being nobody's first choice, Vogel wasn't even the chief protagonist at his own news conference.

Vogel quickly became an onlooker as Pelinka received incoming fire about the intrigue that had consumed the franchise: How did Pelinka feel about Magic's comments? Could his diminishing reputation hurt the Lakers in free agency? How would the organization achieve unity? What specifically is the chain of command?

"We do want today to be about Coach Vogel," Pelinka pleaded, but there was no mercy.

Through it all, Vogel sat with a restful half-smile, right hand on left wrist. His eyes followed the barrage from reporter to GM. After Pelinka fended off a question about the franchise's perceived disarray, Vogel stepped in.

"Quite frankly, the perception of our organization is very far from reality," he said defiantly.

With that, the tone of the room shifted. Through an earnest but assertive appeal, Vogel had defused much of the tension. Yet the tenor of the event seemed to confirm that the Lakers were still a team captive to their self-inflicted melodrama, and Vogel was merely the newest cast member in another subplot. Here was an off-brand coach ill-fitted for the brand-obsessed Lakers, a safety school chosen after their pursuit of more desirable candidates fell short.

Vogel's most recent coaching stint consisted of two forgettable seasons and a 54-110 record with the Orlando Magic. The contract presented to him by the Lakers, at three years, was shorter and the compensation less lucrative than typically offered to most veteran coaches. The front office voiced several directives with regard to staffing his bench that would be a deal-breaker for many.

Then there was the uncertain roster. The Lakers had designs on Anthony Davis, but the acquisition wouldn't be executed for another month. And LeBron James was yet another potential complication, a superstar whose respect can be elusive for any NBA head coach, let alone one who came in through the side door.

But eight months after Vogel rose from that podium and walked into the fire, the Lakers' first-year head coach has amassed wildly positive approval ratings with all constituencies -- the Lakers' brass, the locker room and peers around the league. His performance has surpassed the worst-case scenarios and perhaps even some of the best-case ones.

How did a retread coach who never played a second of NBA basketball nor coached in an NBA Finals game walk into the league's most treacherous minefield and earn the confidence of some of the game's brightest superstars?

Watch: Lakers vs. Rockets (Saturday, 8:30 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN App)

VOGEL BROKE INTO basketball by being a pest.

After getting nothing but "thanks for your interest" responses from the University of Kentucky staff under Rick Pitino to his multiple letters asking for a job, Vogel moved to Lexington in the fall of 1994 without an invitation. Once he arrived, he employed the following strategy: Hang around the facility, volunteer to do anything and everything, prepare relentlessly and be personable -- a proclivity that has always come naturally to him.

"I know it's about who you know," Vogel says, "and I didn't know anyone."

Eventually, Vogel wore down Pitino assistant Jim O'Brien and found himself in the video room.

"He just wanted to learn basketball," Pitino says. "He worked tirelessly but never, ever looked for any credit, never looked for any approval, never looked to move up the ladder."

There in that video room -- much like Erik Spoelstra, Mike Budenholzer, Dave Fizdale and others of his generation -- Vogel steeped himself in the granular X's & O's of the game. He followed Pitino to Boston, then eventually moved to the bench under O'Brien with the Celtics, 76ers and Pacers.

In Indiana, O'Brien had been well aware of team president Larry Bird's steadfast belief that NBA head coaches have an expiration date of three years. So when Bird met with O'Brien on a Sunday morning in January 2011 to fire him, he asked O'Brien if Vogel's loyalty might make him reluctant to accept a battlefield promotion as O'Brien's interim successor.

"I said, 'That's bulls---,'" O'Brien says. "'This is an opportunity for him. Let's get him on the phone.'"

When Vogel was on the line, O'Brien said, "Larry wants you to be the interim, and I don't have any problem with your doing it."

The next day, Vogel convened his first meeting as an NBA head coach.

"When Frank started talking, I thought right away, he's grabbed the room -- the energy, the positivity," says longtime Pacers assistant Dan Burke. "The room lifted up, and you could feel it."

With Roy Hibbert dropping back in the pick-and-roll and perimeter defenders determined to stay out of rotations at all costs, the Pacers built a league-best defense on the way to two conference finals appearances. As an offensive coach, Vogel preferred to control possessions, but Bird decided in 2015 that the Pacers needed to pick up the pace with a small-ball lineup featuring All-Star Paul George at power forward.

"I was caught in between Larry forcing him to play 4, and me having a mindset of, 'Let's try it. I think there's value in it,'" Vogel says. "But Paul was resistant, like 100% resistant. I'm mediating, but Paul just didn't like it. I remember Larry was in the papers saying, 'They don't make the decisions around here. I do.'"

Following the season, in which the Pacers bowed out in the first round, Vogel was dismissed. And unlike O'Brien, Vogel was not so sanguine regarding his sudden demise.

"When Larry called to fire me," Vogel says, "I told him that he's making a mistake."

FROM THE OUTSIDE, Vogel looked like a coach set up for failure.

The Lakers had first pursued Monty Williams and Tyronn Lue, but both backed out. They then turned to Vogel, a candidate they figured likely wouldn't object to their terms.

After Vogel's Orlando exit in 2018, there was no certainty he would ever get another chance to lead an NBA team, and a LeBron-led squad is a plum position, irrespective of the franchise's recent self-inflicted wounds. Yet Vogel was well-respected for his preparation skills, regarded as inordinately affable and -- possibly most important -- a pliable listener who would collaborate with all the Lakers' stakeholders on decisions big and small.

That collaboration included Vogel's coaching staff. Publicly, the Lakers reject the notion that they had any specific problem with Walton's group. Yet sources say the front office was allergic to the idea of their next coach populating the bench with "his guys." The Lakers felt strongly that the staff should be a collection of former head coaches whose experience could earn instant credibility with a veteran roster.

One of those primary assistants would be Hall of Fame point guard Jason Kidd, whom two sources have independently said James regards as the only person alive who sees the game of basketball with his level of clarity. Kidd was also known to be looking for his next opportunity as a head coach and had interviewed for the Lakers' vacancy. The instant the Vogel-Kidd pairing was announced, the schadenfreude brigade began chattering about Vogel's life expectancy with the Lakers, with Kidd waiting in the wings.

"There's always going to be chatter -- it's the Lakers," Kidd says. "Sometimes people act like I never played a game and I've never been a teammate. I was a good teammate then, and I'm a good teammate now."

When Vogel first met with Kidd after accepting the Lakers' offer, he wanted to hear about Kidd's machinations as the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks in great detail. Vogel treated the meeting as an interview of sorts.

Theoretically, Vogel could have suggested a veto if he'd felt uneasy. But he had experience with respected former NBA players with aspirations to be a head coach, including Brian Shaw and Nate McMillan. Kidd was forthcoming about his previous stops, and Vogel was sufficiently reassured.

"I can't have four video guys on my staff," Vogel says. "The right complement for me has always been a respected former player who has coaching experience. But you can't have the mindset that you're going to look over your shoulder -- you need firepower on staff."

Whatever potential stress that may have been introduced by the Lakers' team of rivals structure, Vogel had apparently defused it early. But establishing calm on and off the court where chaos had reigned would be a more difficult task.

IN THE EVOLUTION of any NBA coach who wins over his team, there are moments early in his term that build credibility. Such a moment for Vogel occurred in his fifth regular-season game with the Lakers. During a tight road matchup against the Dallas Mavericks, the Lakers trailed by three with 6.4 seconds remaining.

In the huddle, he called for a set the Lakers had practiced for this precise situation. It was a classic, mastered by the San Antonio Spurs and Manu Ginobili to set up great shooters: The Hammer.

"It calls for a left-handed drive and LeBron is a natural left-handed driver," Vogel says.

The Lakers executed the possession to perfection.

Dwight Howard laid out Seth Curry, Danny Green's defender, with a sturdy down screen, as Green sprinted to the right corner. Simultaneously, James drove hard into the gut of the lane, then fired a pinpoint pass to Green, who drained the shot at the buzzer. The Lakers prevailed in overtime, stretching their record to 4-1.

"That was a big moment for both sides," Kidd says. "Players learn they can trust the coach, and the coach learns he can trusts his players."

Poll any NBA roster -- particularly a veteran one -- for the most important attribute for a head coach, and accountability will likely rank second to trust. Players want to know that the staff will set standards for performance and will enforce those standards with consistency, from superstar to the end of the bench.

After a lackluster defensive performance earlier this month against the New Orleans Pelicans in which the Lakers allowed 68 points in the paint on 67% shooting, Vogel unleashed his fury in an exhaustive film session featuring a sequence of defensive snafus.

"He got on all of us -- me, LeBron, everyone. A lot of coaches don't get on their superstars, but he does," Davis says. "What's impressed me the most is that even when we win, he holds us accountable. When a team sees a coach getting on LeBron or me, the other guys respect him more and know they'll be held accountable too."

In their next game, the Lakers set a franchise record with 20 blocks in a win over the Detroit Pistons.

Vogel has a goofball quality with an encyclopedic knowledge of broad comedy, and he occasionally lightens those tough film sessions with odd "Saturday Night Live" clips. Recognizing that the roster includes a number of wine enthusiasts, Vogel spliced in an old "SNL" sketch that takes place in a wine cellar that had the room in stitches. A film session in Miami, a city notorious for nightlife, included a comedy bit about the laws of male attraction.

Vogel has also earned praise for some more nuanced gestures. Headed into the season, he had several decisions to make with regard to the starting lineup, all concerning veteran players.

At center, he opted for JaVale McGee over Dwight Howard due to McGee's superior preseason. He deliberated over whether Avery Bradley or Rajon Rondo should start at guard. Vogel recognized that Rondo was the purer orchestrator but that Bradley might have more success defending opposing 1s. He ultimately chose Bradley, with Rondo commandeering the second unit. The starters with Bradley have posted a net rating of 13.7, while Rondo's second units with Kyle Kuzma, Howard, James and a platoon of 2s have a gaudy mark of 23.1.

An NBA head coach can be a whiteboard Jedi in a huddle, but the vast majority of his job will be performed outside of the arena -- and that's especially true if his team features LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

COACHING A TEAM with marquee talent is fraught with hazards. You must speak truths, but too much truth can wear down players. You must come to the facility prepared, but vets don't need a heavy playbook. And collaboration with superstars is vital, yet deference can be problematic. It's a delicate dance.

When asked their impressions of how Vogel is managing that in Los Angeles, multiple people in the organization praised him for striking the perfect balance.

"Frank is a motivator and true leader, and he's consistent -- emotionally and with his message," says Lakers guard Avery Bradley. "That's important because when you're around a lot of alpha males every single day, you need a lot of consistency. It builds respect."

With the Lakers on a three-game skid heading into a marquee Christmas Day showdown against the Clippers, the team faced a decision about how to manage two upcoming days off.

Did the Lakers want to practice on the 23rd, the day after a bad loss to the Denver Nuggets? Did they want to rest and come into the facility on the 24th? How strenuous should the work be? What about family time on Christmas Eve? Would the players prefer a walk-through on Christmas Day?

Vogel is well within his rights to make that call unilaterally -- and some NBA coaches might balk at handing over that decision, even to superstars. Vogel, though, consulted with both James and Davis. And he makes no bones about it.

"This is how I ask the question," Vogel says. "'Hey, I'm trying to solidify what this should look like. This is your guys' team. This is what I think puts us in the best position to win, but how do you feel about it? Because it's Christmas and I'm flexible.'"

James and Davis decided that the team should do film and light work on the 23rd, then come in at the unusually early hour of 8 a.m. on Christmas Eve. This arrangement would leave players with a good 24 hours to spend time with family and friends.

"His communication skills have been on point when it comes to the top two players," says veteran forward Jared Dudley. "He knows the temperature of the team, knows when [James and Davis] need time off, when to rely on them, when to get on them in a film session. Everything he's doing says 'veteran coach.'"

And when Kentavious Caldwell-Pope struggled with his shot early in the season, Vogel doubled down on his shooting guard, increasing his minutes. Through encouraging texts, conversations after practice and passing remarks, Vogel pledged his faith. Teammates also rallied behind Caldwell-Pope. After a strong game in a win over the Sacramento Kings on Nov. 15, Dwight Howard posted a note of encouragement on Instagram, a post liked by both James and Davis.

"To know through my struggles 'My coach still believes in me' does a lot for your mindset," Caldwell-Pope says. "Now I'm not thinking about that. I can go get my work in and start producing."

In his past 30 games, Caldwell-Pope has shot 46.6% from beyond the arc -- seventh best in the NBA among shooters with greater than three attempts per game.

"My belief started in how hard [Caldwell-Pope] plays," Vogel says. "When you compete that hard and you're contributing to winning, whether you're making shots or not, you've earned that belief."

TODAY, NEITHER VOGEL nor the players nor Pelinka is eager to take a victory lap for an auspicious first chapter. Everything looks rosy when you're 33-8 at the halfway point, but the NBA is unforgiving when momentum shifts. The vagaries of the season -- a single injury, a little static in the media, a crisis of faith -- can derail a team's fortunes in an instant.

Yet for a franchise that had spent the past several years engrossed in a grotesque reality show, Vogel's arrival in Los Angeles has coincided with a newfound peace. The atmosphere around the team is one of veteran professionalism. Roles are defined and fulfilled. In a league where flip-switching has become the norm during the regular season, the Lakers seem committed to their workaday tasks and have the record to prove it.

Or, perhaps, there's something else at play. Coaching is still an unquantifiable skill. NBA franchises, even the most deliberate and strategic in their thinking, make these hires on feel.

And in Frank Vogel, an organization that has been preoccupied with recapturing the aura of past glory made a counterintuitive, decidedly unsplashy hire. Vogel doesn't have any royal Lakers bloodlines or brand-name appeal. Nothing about his persona screams Los Angeles Lakers -- and yet it's working. The Lakers are closer than they've been in a decade to restoring their claim as the NBA's iconic franchise, and, for now, they're doing it without a hint of drama.

"Frank comes in every day, win or lose, with the same attitude. Never too high and never too low," Davis says. "I love his coaching, I love his coaching style -- and I love him as a coach."

For Vogel, his current gig seems eons removed from his frustrating stint presiding over a young, mismatched, injury-riddled roster in Orlando, particularly his final season as a lame-duck coach under new management.

Asked how he would've reacted if someone told him during his latter days in Orlando that in less than two years he'd be coaching LeBron James and Anthony Davis for the Lakers, Vogel responded with giddy disbelief -- as if the scenario were hypothetical.

"I would've asked to be fired."

Major League Baseball has shifted its view of deceased players who have been banned for life, a group that includes "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and the seven other Chicago White Sox players prohibited from playing professional baseball in 1921 for fixing the 1919 World Series.

A senior MLB source told ESPN that the league has no hold on banned players after they die because the ineligible list bars players from privileges that include a job with a major league club.

"From our perspective, the purpose of the ineligible list is a practical matter," the source told ESPN. "It's used to prevent someone from working in the game. When a person on the ineligible list passes away, he's unable to work in the game. And so for all practical purposes, we don't consider a review of the status of anyone who has passed away."

The previously unreported change is potentially significant when it comes to the consideration of Jackson's eligibility for the Hall of Fame. He has not been considered for decades despite numerous public and petition-writing campaigns to get him removed from baseball's ineligible list.

In 1991, the Hall of Fame passed a rule declaring that any player ruled ineligible by Major League Baseball could not appear on a Hall of Fame ballot. This became known as the "Pete Rose rule," because it closely followed the indefinite banning of Rose, MLB's all-time hits leader, by commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1989.

Rose has never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot, and his application for reinstatement was rejected by commissioner Rob Manfred in December 2015.

The change in baseball's thinking about deceased players on its ineligible list will be a part of ESPN's docuseries epidosde Backstory: Banned for Life*, which debuts Sunday on ESPN (3 p.m. ET).

The shift in MLB's view raises the question of whether the Hall of Fame's Early Baseball committee would consider Jackson, Buck Weaver and Eddie Cicotte, all of whom were banned from playing professional baseball by commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1921 despite being acquitted by a Chicago jury of fixing the 1919 World Series. A subcommittee will determine the 10 individuals who played or were involved in the game prior to 1950 who will appear on this year's ballot, to be considered by the full Early Baseball committee this December.

A spokesman for the Hall of Fame declined to comment. Manfred also declined to comment through a league spokesman.

"We're agnostic about a player's eligibility for the Hall of Fame, whether they're dead or alive," an MLB source told ESPN.

The shift in thinking has been pushed for years by some baseball historians, including John Thorn, the official historian of MLB, who first argued that the ineligible list ends with an individual's death in an essay in February 2016. He made the case again in an op-ed in The New York Times last October upon the 100th anniversary of the fixed World Series between the White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds.

"Major League Baseball removes players from the ineligible list when they die, and because the Baseball Hall of Fame aligns its balloting procedures with Major League policy, theoretically there is no barrier to Jackson's induction," wrote Thorn, who declined to comment for this story.

Baseball insiders said Manfred did not necessarily agree with Thorn's view, but an MLB source told ESPN this week that Major League Baseball does agree with it -- and has for some time -- but chose not to make it public.

Backstory with Don Van Natta Jr. premieres at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday (re-air at 9 p.m. ET) on ESPN. The show is also available to watch anytime on the ESPN App.

The Colorado Rockies will retire the jersey of outfielder Larry Walker on April 19, the team announced Friday.

Walker, the National League MVP in 1997, played 10 seasons with the Rockies, batting .334 with 258 home runs and 848 RBIs. His 17-year career also included stops in Montreal and St. Louis.

"I can't tell you how taken aback I am by this gesture," Walker said in a statement. "I am both thrilled and honored."

Walker ranks first in Rockies history in batting average, on-base percentage (.426) and slugging percentage (.618). He was a five-time All-Star, a seven-time Gold Glove winner and won the NL batting title three times.

Former Cy Young Award winner Jack McDowell on Friday accused Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa of having a camera-aided sign-stealing system installed when he was with the Chicago White Sox in the late 1980s.

McDowell, who made his major league debut for the White Sox in 1987 and pitched for 12 seasons in the majors, never played for La Russa, who was fired by the White Sox during the previous season. However, in an appearance on The Mac Attack on WFNZ in Charlotte, McDowell described a system that he said was put in place by La Russa.

"We had a system in the old Comiskey Park in the late 1980s," McDowell, who coaches at Queens University, told the radio station Friday. "The Gatorade sign out in center had a light; there was a toggle switch in the manager's office and [a] camera zoomed in on the catcher.

"I'm gonna whistle-blow this now because I'm getting tired of this crap. There was that -- Tony La Russa is the one who put it in. ... He's still in the game making half a million, you know? No one is going to go after that. It's just, this stuff is getting old where they target certain guys and let other people off the hook."

La Russa currently serves as a senior adviser for the Los Angeles Angels. He won three World Series titles as a manager -- two with the St. Louis Cardinals and one with the Oakland Athletics -- and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.

The Angels have not responded to a request for comment from La Russa.

On Monday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred released the findings of an investigation that found the Houston Astros used technology to cheat during their World Series-winning 2017 season. Since then, three managers -- A.J. Hinch (Astros), Alex Cora (Red Sox) and Carlos Beltran (Mets) -- have lost their jobs in connection to the scandal.

McDowell alleged in the radio interview that the next day's starting pitcher would sit in the manager's office, watch the catcher's signals and would alert White Sox batters with the light in the Gatorade sign.

"I've never said anything about the old system we had because once we got to new Comiskey [in 1991], I didn't know if there was one or not," said McDowell, who won the Cy Young Award in 1993. "There were rumors that we had one, but it wasn't as out there as the first one was where they forced the pitcher who was pitching the next day to go in there and flip on the toggle switch and stuff."

McDowell, a three-time All-Star selection who also played for the New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians and Angels during his career, said pitchers used to be the enforcers if they suspected foul play, but stricter MLB rules today keep that from happening.

"You know how it used to be taken care of?" McDowell said in the radio interview. "If they were stealing signs from second base, you just had the catcher call a breaking ball and then throw your fastball off someone's neck and just say, 'Oh, you're gonna keep trying to pick up signs, guys? What's it going to be?'

"There's ways to go around it. Players could police it back in the day. But now if you throw a ball 6 inches inside, you're almost thrown out of the game immediately and everyone wants to fight. Back in the day, it was like, 'You want to steal signs, yeah that helmet better be working right now.'"

NEW YORK -- When allegations that the Houston Astros had stolen signs electronically during their 2017 World Series championship season surfaced in November, Jimmy O'Brien was sitting in his new apartment in Harlem, waiting for five Verizon workers to finish setting up his cable internet.

Known better as Jomboy, O'Brien had broken into baseball internet prominence over the course of the 2019 season with a series of hot-mic videos that included turning New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone's "savages in the box" rant into a viral sensation.

When O'Brien read in The Athletic's report that a banging sound could be heard from the Astros' dugout whenever a changeup signal was given by an opposing team's catcher, he quickly began scouring the MLB.TV archives, using his cellphone as a hot spot. He was far from the only one to track down Chicago White Sox reliever Danny Farquhar's now-infamous 2017 appearance in Houston, but within two hours, O'Brien had pulled the video demonstrating the banging, added his voice-over commentary, and tweeted it out.

Astros using cameras to steal signs, a breakdown pic.twitter.com/rncm6qzXxw

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) November 12, 2019

With his phone buzzing from an influx of Twitter notifications, O'Brien called his girlfriend.

"I think I opened a can of worms," he said.

THE CAN OF worms exploded Monday, when Major League Baseball announced one-year suspensions for Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch, in addition to fining the team $5 million and stripping Houston of first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021. Within hours of commissioner Rob Manfred's report, Astros owner Jim Crane fired both Luhnow and Hinch. A day later, the Boston Red Sox parted ways with their manager, Alex Cora, who had been Houston's bench coach in 2017. And on Thursday, former Astros player Carlos Beltran became the third manager to lose his job, in his case before he got the chance to skipper a single game for the New York Mets.

During MLB's three-month investigation, the public scrutiny was unprecedented, a baseball scandal -- itself about technology -- unfolding in real time, with more incriminating evidence seemingly uncovered on Twitter by the hour. Not just fans and journalists but players -- and league officials -- noticed.

The internet's social media sleuthing skills played a crucial role in shaping the investigation, dramatically reducing the time the league needed to comb through video for evidence, league sources tell ESPN. While the activity online shot a jolt of adrenaline into the baseball fan community, it was also helping to shape MLB's first uniquely 21st century scandal.

On Nov. 13, the day after the initial report, O'Brien explained on his baseball podcast how easy it was for him to find the cuts in his viral compilation, which has garnered more than 4 million views. It helped start an avalanche. Video clips poured into his inbox from followers, and he began editing and tweeting more instances of banging, up and down the Astros' lineup. As of Thursday, his thread has more than 33,000 retweets and 100,000 likes and stands as a record of what was then a rapidly accumulating list of evidence -- tangible, easy-to-digest evidence -- against the Astros.

"I just took all the information I had from all over the place, made the video and told the story to my audience," O'Brien says. "But I didn't break this news. I helped accelerate it, and helped people really see. It just kept going.

"People think I'm watching hours of Astros, but nah, I crowdsource this s---."

A Twitter timeline of O'Brien's posts that day reveals these key moments:

1:39 a.m.: O'Brien follows his initial video with a second clip of a 2017 Evan Gattis at-bat with no bang on a first-pitch fastball, two bangs on an off-speed second pitch and no bang on a third-pitch fastball.

Another game vs the WS.

1st pitch fastball: no bang
2nd pitch off speed: bang bang
3rd pitch fastball: no bang pic.twitter.com/NB1CWRh0l9

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) November 13, 2019

2:02 a.m. and 2:28 a.m.: O'Brien posts similar clips featuring Josh Reddick, Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa.

Reddick

1. 4-seam: no bang
2. 2-seam: bang
3. 2-seam: bang

Altuve
1. offspeed: bang pic.twitter.com/4HPZtzUCIq

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) November 13, 2019

fastball: no bang
offspeed: bang pic.twitter.com/w3coyl27q3

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) November 13, 2019

12:20 p.m.: The next clip from O'Brien, a homer from George Springer, adds a new flair: a big BANG graphic, indicating when the sound is audible.

haha listen to this one. Springer homers on an 0-2 pitch pic.twitter.com/FZ6eT6Ikwf

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) November 13, 2019

3:19 p.m.: A second follow-up clip, of an Alex Bregman home run, employs the same BANG graphic.

Bregman down 0-2. gets two offspeed pitches that come with the bang. spits on the first. homers on the second. pic.twitter.com/pM6i0UKgGH

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) November 13, 2019

Over the course of the next 24 hours, more videos popped onto Twitter. Writer Ian Hunter -- @BlueJayHunter on Twitter -- put together a banging noises compilation from different Astros at-bats in Houston with then-Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman on the mound, a clip Stroman himself quote-tweeted with the caption, "This is crazy." The clip was retweeted thousands of times, and its veracity was later confirmed by MLB's investigation, which noted in Monday's report, "Generally, one or two bangs corresponded to certain off-speed pitches, while no bang corresponded to a fastball."

This is crazy. https://t.co/DuknUCQaRb

— Marcus Stroman (@STR0) November 14, 2019

The virality of user-generated baseball content has jumped in recent years due to the popularity of accounts such as Jomboy's and Rob Friedman's PitchingNinja -- but this was a whole new ballgame.

"Guys like Jomboy and PitchingNinja, their entire existence is digging into video like this, not necessarily to find stuff, but for entertainment purposes," says Los Angeles-based social media consultant Lana Berry, who runs a Twitter account popular with baseball fans. "For them, it's really easy to pull and show this video and showing where the banging is happening, and it's almost like an Easter egg hunt because it's something you can find. You can hear it. It's something tangible, whereas some of the other things coming out might be really hard to find. People are so interested because they can find information on their own. It doesn't have to be fed to them through reporters."

The reporting that began with The Athletic's story, and later the findings on social media, led to an influx of players from opposing teams tweeting their anger about the situation, with years of rumors and gossip finally bubbling to the surface.

??

— Luis Severino (@LuisSeverino94) November 13, 2019

This Astros thing is bad!!! Guys lost jobs, got sent down, missed service time bc of how they were hit in HOU. Does anyone really think they only did this in 17? #getreal

— Kevin Gausman (@KevinGausman) November 14, 2019

OOOOOHHHHHH SO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THE GUY VIDEOING OUR DUGOUT IN 2018 ALDS WASN'T JUST DOING THAT TO "PrOtEcT aGaInSt ThE iNdIAnS sTeAlInG sIgNs"!? WHO WOULD HAVE EVER GUESSED THAT HE WAS UP TO NO GOOD. WHAT A REVELATION...maybe @Mlb will do something about it this time but ??‍♂️ https://t.co/zuwDswDczr

— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) November 17, 2019

@ABREG_1 pic.twitter.com/lgrBoUo1Wj

— ❂ Mike ??ℕ?ℍ?ℕ? Clevinger ❂ (@Mike_Anthony13) November 12, 2019

With more and more players sharing their thoughts online about the allegations made by former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers, fans were emboldened to keep digging and other players shared what they knew, too.

"I think that it really took someone who was on the Astros to say something," Berry says. "Some [players] had tweeted about it, but they seemed paranoid and salty and crazy if you're just tweeting about the bullpen coach having an earpiece and signaling to these guys. It's really easy to dismiss that and whatever, but when you have all these people from the teams who say these things are happening, it feels a lot safer to share those things that you know, because it's more of a pile-on rather than [one lone voice] being like, 'Hey, this is happening.'"

HARRISON MILLER, 17, attends Colts Neck High School in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and runs @YankeeReport_, where he aggregates news, rumors and daily lineups for the Bronx Bombers.

On Nov. 17, Miller received a screenshot from an Instagram follower, taken from a 2017 World Series documentary. It showed a setup near the Astros' dugout that featured a monitor on a table with two chairs -- and a trash can that matched the description from the original report.

Just absurd pic.twitter.com/ZnU8iXjaQc

— The Yankee Report (@YankeeReport_) November 17, 2019

After posting it on Instagram and Twitter, Miller noticed Jomboy had retweeted his image.

"Really, somebody just messaged me the image and I didn't really think anything of it at the time," Miller says. "I decided to just throw it on Twitter and then all of a sudden, Jomboy retweeted it and I hadn't expected anything of it, and I kind of assumed it was something people already had seen. People started retweeting it, and it got really big."

Sure enough, in its report Monday, MLB confirmed the setup. "Cora arranged for a video room technician," Manfred wrote, "to install a monitor displaying the center field camera feed immediately outside of the Astros' dugout."

Says Miller: "There's so many things hiding pretty much in plain sight, that the average person watching the game wouldn't even consider, necessarily."

The image kept the conversation going on Twitter. Eireann Dolan, an active member of baseball Twitter and Washington Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle's wife, corrected another user, who speculated that the monitor was for instant replay. "It is absolutely positively not a replay monitor," Dolan tweeted. "Replay Monitors are in the video room in the clubhouses. There are video rooms in every clubhouse. The MLB replay monitors are in NY, but the team video staff watches game feeds in those video rooms. They call the dugout if they think something merits a challenge. There is no independent tunnel MLB replay monitor."

The debate ensued, drawing in players, and Doolittle himself chimed in, tweeting: "Idk I've never played on a team that's had video set up in the tunnel like that - guys had to go back upstairs. But if that's what it's for, why the towels? Why break it down after a game? Obviously don't know the whole story but I think it's more than fair to be skeptical here."

IT'S ALSO FAIR to be skeptical of what you read on Twitter -- not every fan-fueled theory necessarily leads to the truth.

According to a report in the New York Post, scouts and executives had whispered about the Astros wearing electronic bandages to receive buzzes in real time, indicating what pitch was coming. Within a few hours, Jomboy tweeted a photo of a Band-Aid falling off the finger of an Astros player, Robinson Chirinos, following it up with, "this could literally be anything, but I've been told the buzzers are very real."

I have no idea what an electronic buzzer looks like but someone just sent me this as a 'maybe that's what that is?' pic.twitter.com/xLSkqhgGeO

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) November 18, 2019

While many theories -- on the Astros' methods or the culpability of other teams -- remain the source of speculation as MLB continues to investigate sign stealing, the buzzing-bandages rumors got the commissioner's office on the record. Manfred told Sports Illustrated they were untrue, with the bandage in question simply a pad to protect a bone bruise.

"I will tell you this: We found no Band-Aid buzzer issues," Manfred said. "There's a lot of paranoia out there."

Manfred's assertion hasn't put the buzzer issue to rest. Social media is still questioning the degree of rule-breaking by the Astros, even with an official report released. As late as this Thursday, the discussion continued in the wake of Beltran's parting from the Mets, leading to a wild day on Twitter, plus a denial from Altuve and a statement from MLB that it "explored wearing devices during the investigation but found no evidence to substantiate it."

The Beltrán family told me that this individual, who claims to be Carlos Beltrán's "niece", is not related to the family in any way. This person may or may not have additional information about the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal, but they are not related to the Beltráns. https://t.co/2vTdiqGvl4

— Marly Rivera (@MarlyRiveraESPN) January 16, 2020

I've heard this from multiple parties too, for what it's worth... https://t.co/zDlp0x4bKs

— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) January 16, 2020

Altuve making sure he keeps that jersey on (via r/nyyankees) pic.twitter.com/OO32FVFxTi

— Kenny Ducey (@KennyDucey) January 16, 2020

Hey you idiots, this is confetti from the celebration. You think he'd do an interview with it if it was something bad ??‍♀️ #astros #joshreddick #youallareidiots pic.twitter.com/TSrNChbtoU

— Jett Reddick (@JettReddick) January 16, 2020

When debate over the Astros' approach went beyond trash-can banging over the past few months, other theories were advanced. To counter one, Astros fan Tony Adams posted a video purporting to log every "charge" whistle from Game 5 of the 2017 World Series and show there was no correlation between the whistling and sign stealing.

"You're going to get A LOT of mad yankee fans in here. Prepared [sic] for a bad like/dislike ratio lol," responded one YouTube commenter, ostensibly referring, at least in part, to chatter during the 2019 ALCS that Houston used whistling to transmit illegally stolen signs against New York.

But when Manfred released his report Monday, it underscored how the line between fact and fan fiction -- if it is indeed fiction -- can blur when a major story breaks online. "Witnesses explained that they initially experimented with communicating sign information by clapping, whistling, or yelling," he wrote, "but that they eventually determined that banging a trash can was the preferred method of communication."

He also noted "the investigation revealed no violations of the [revised sign-stealing] policy by the Astros in the 2019 season or 2019 Postseason."

As the release of MLB's report loomed, the conversation online progressed, for better and worse, and social media continued to have a profound effect. If nothing else, memes helped keep the pressure on MLB officials and the Astros, even as the platform served as a welcome reminder that you can't believe everything you read on the internet.

Iconic Swings in Baseball History @astros pic.twitter.com/F8nSariehW

— Kent Murphy (@coachkentmurphy) November 18, 2019

In The Air Tonight (Astros Remix) ??? pic.twitter.com/upVQwQg04Y

— Baseball Quotes (@BaseballQuotes1) November 19, 2019

#Astros Twitter trying to come after @Jomboy_... pic.twitter.com/u8rvN0ypvv

— Mark Brockett (@Tuff_Overlord) November 18, 2019

No one:

The Astros: pic.twitter.com/w1LR4FMKHA

— MV?️ETE HR CHAMP ?? (METANCESZN) #LGM (@kevinh12251) November 17, 2019

THE ASTROS' SIGN-STEALING saga has captured the attention of hardcore and casual fans alike, the biggest baseball scandal since steroids infiltrated the daily discourse of the sport at the turn of the century.

But as this controversy made its way from front offices to subreddits, it sparked fans to become further invested in the sport, as they analyzed video clips and devoured Twitter threads, all while major league players publicly discussed the integrity and the future of the game with them.

"It's so interesting from my perspective because it used to feel like old-school message boards and stuff that interested us as a baseball fan to now, everyone knows the writers or are friends with the writers or are friends with the players because so many more of them are active on Twitter," Berry says. "Now that we have players tweeting, and players probably helping other guys who are giving information, it all feels more centralized where you feel like you can influence the game because you are actually involved versus when it was just fans getting into the game."

Baseball's latest scandal is the result of a slow response to quickly evolving technology amid the sport's implementation of instant replay review, but it has put the collective power of the internet on display in a manner that would not have been possible just 10 years ago.

"People are bored at work. You're just watching videos and hearing for bangs. They're actually talking about it on the news cycle," O'Brien says. "It's a whole new world."

BASEBALL LOST ITS mind Thursday. Every sport endures this: part-cleansing, part-reckoning, part-recalibration -- a day to release everything, good, bad and otherwise, a full-throated scream into the void. It was inevitable, building up over the previous three days, each unforgettable in its own right. History will treat Thursday as a footnote, even if it said as much about the sport's current state as Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday combined.

It started with a discussion about whether the player who helped expose the game's biggest cheating scandal in a century was a whistleblower or a narc, moved on to the firing of a manager who hadn't even managed a game, degenerated into anonymous Twitter accounts lobbing entirely uncorroborated accusations of even worse cheating, giddily grew into a miasma of conspiratorial, frame-by-frame breakdowns of jerseys and lip-reading and confetti. It was a beautiful, ugly, transfixing, maddening, godforsaken mess, simultaneously addictive and repulsive. For one day, baseball felt like a real modern sport, full of verve, and not one stuck in the morass of its past.

"This is the greatest thing I've ever seen," one general manager said midafternoon, when -- and this is a real thing -- he called to ask whether the fired New York Mets manager actually had a niece who was tweeting about the 2019 Houston Astros wearing buzzers under their uniforms that let them know which pitch was coming. "I want to take this day and freeze it in time so I can keep living it."

By the end of Thursday, Major League Baseball and a target of the accusations both had chimed in, players across the sport had offered their feelings on the matter -- a matter that still, it is important to note, has zero factual backing -- and the 12-hour fire hose of raw, uncut content had satiated the masses with plenty of leftovers for the next day.

On the baseball calendar, Jan. 16 is typically nondescript, just a day to X off on the countdown to spring training, and not a "Real Housewives" episode dressed in a tinfoil hat. The thing is, for all of the drama, the disappointment, the pettiness, the anger -- for how so very 2020 the day was -- this particular Jan. 16 told a story, and a fine one at that. Of where baseball has been, where it is now and where it is going next.

***

EXACTLY 15 MONTHS before Thursday, on Oct. 16, 2018, the Houston Astros hosted the Boston Red Sox in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. During Game 1 in Boston, a low-level baseball-operations staffer for Houston named Kyle McLaughlin had been removed from a camera well for aiming a cellphone toward the Red Sox's dugout. The Astros claimed they were worried the Red Sox were cheating. For more than a year before that ALCS, teams around the league had expressed fear the Astros were the ones cheating. Two players told me at the time that Astros players had been hitting a garbage can to share stolen signs. Major League Baseball said it was investigating. Nothing came of it.

Today, both teams are without their managers from that ALCS, which represents the highest-profile meeting between the two teams that have personified the game's cheating scandal. In 2017, when the Astros won the World Series, they were banging on garbage cans to relay signs filched from the catcher using an illicit center-field camera. And in 2018, when the Red Sox won the World Series, they spent the season, according to a report by The Athletic, using a video-replay room to decode sign sequences and pass them along to hitters to convey while on the basepaths.

What unfolded Jan. 16, 2020, then, wasn't some anomalous event, a string of accidents and coincidences and happenstance. It was an evolutionary byproduct of a baseball world gone bonkers, one in which the ridiculous -- hammering a trash can with a bat -- is true. Just because you're paranoid, Joseph Heller might have said, doesn't mean they aren't wearing buzzing Band-Aids.

The fallout from The Athletic's story in November, which provided a clear picture of how the Astros cheated thanks to on-the-record quotes from former Houston pitcher Mike Fiers, has been unlike anything baseball has seen since the 1919 Black Sox threw the World Series. The MLB investigation prompted by the story included interviews with dozens of witnesses, reviewed tens of thousands of documents and led to a nine-page report from commissioner Rob Manfred that left little doubt of the hubris it took to engage in such systematic cheating.

Released Monday, the report buried the Astros and led to full-season suspensions of general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch. An hour after the report's distribution, Astros owner Jim Crane went on TV and fired Luhnow and Hinch. Barely a day later, the Red Sox wasted no time in firing their manager, Alex Cora, whom the report had singled out as a mastermind of the Astros' trash-can-banging scheme when he served as their bench coach in 2017. On Wednesday, Mets executives huddled in Port St. Lucie, Florida, their spring home, arguing over the fate of their manager, Carlos Beltran, who was a player for the 2017 Astros and was named in Manfred's report. His situation called for contemplation: The Mets were considering firing Beltran even though Manfred had not disciplined him.

It began earlier than anticipated, with ESPN Sunday Night Baseball analyst Jessica Mendoza, who is also employed by the Mets as an adviser, enduring a deluge of criticism for telling the Golic and Wingo radio show that she disagreed with Fiers' decision to reveal the Astros' cheating publicly. This is not an uncommon view within the sport, where Fiers is regarded more as a snitch than the person who exposed baseball's dirtiest secret.

Hours later, the Mets reaffirmed the decision they were leaning toward the previous night despite Beltran's protestations that he could weather whatever troubles the future might pose: They would fire him 77 days after they hired him. It mattered not whether the decision was right or just or prudent. Scandals are nasty and unwieldy, and their unpredictability incentivizes excision. Rehabilitation is too difficult.

Just look at the reputation of the Astros -- of their swift descent from loved to loathed. It was on full display in the aftermath of Beltran's dismissal, which prompted a Twitter account that purported to be run by a niece of Beltran to accuse Astros stars Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman of wearing electronic buzzers. Such rumors have percolated for months without substantiation. The social media masses, drunk on schadenfreude, nevertheless spread the tweets with glee. ESPN's Marly Rivera reported that Beltran's wife, Jessica, said the account wasn't run by anyone related to the family. It did nothing to stop the speculating. Context is no match for bloodlust.

Look at what the internet had done for the scandal in the first place. Soon after the original story ran, Jimmy O'Brien, a New York Yankees fan who runs Jomboy Media, found video clips of an at-bat between Houston DH Evan Gattis and Chicago White Sox pitcher Danny Farquhar. In it, the audible trash-can bangs provide a soundtrack against which O'Brien illustrates how the Astros' scheme worked. It was brilliant and damning and birthed dozens more videos that laid bare the Astros' cheating. MLB didn't even need to go through tape. The evidence was one Reddit link away.

O'Brien's sleuthing success begat Thursday. He amplified the faux niece's faux tweets -- and got a retweet from Cincinnati starter Trevor Bauer saying he'd heard the same. He circulated a picture of Astros outfielder Josh Reddick wearing what looked like tape over a wire. It was actually a piece of gold confetti, from the Astros' 2019 ALCS celebration, that stuck to his skin and covered a skinny chain. Just as bad was the Zapruder-like breakdown of the final 90 feet in Altuve's home run trot after his pennant-clinching home run. Altuve didn't want his shirt torn off. Amateur lip readers thought he said one thing. Other amateur lip readers thought he said another -- in Spanish. If all the Astros were involved, why had Carlos Correa allowed his shirt to be ripped off after walking off Game 2?

The absurdity was multiplying, and that was before the players started talking. National League MVP Cody Bellinger, part of the Los Angeles Dodgers teams that lost World Series to Houston in 2017 and Boston in 2018, said: "For the sake of the game I hope this isn't true.. if true, there needs to be major consequences to the players. That Completely ruins the integrity of the game!!!" His Dodgers teammate Alex Wood tweeted: "I would rather face a player that was taking steroids than face a player that knew every pitch was coming."

Already MLB had addressed 2019 in its report: "The investigation revealed no violations of the policy by the Astros in the 2019 season or 2019 Postseason." Suddenly, this was up for debate, an interesting choice by the masses, which had accepted the rest of the report as fact. This was the paranoia, the acknowledgment that MLB hadn't pursued past cases with urgency, so why would it for this one? The crowd grew louder and included swaths of people in front offices, who texted the Reddick picture and the Altuve video and wondered whether there was a there there.

They want to believe there is -- that the Astros didn't just stop after winning the World Series or losing to the Red Sox in 2018, because that's illogical. Who finds grand success with something and ... stops? The Astros cheating in 2019 makes more sense than it doesn't. The Astros advancing beyond the trash can to something more technologically advanced does, too. And in this moment, where baseball is vulnerable, where the bounds of believability have been stretched, the plausible feels probable, and feelings serve as information's gatekeeper.

Altuve was trending No. 1 nationally on Twitter when the league released a statement: "MLB explored wearable devices during the investigation but found no evidence to substantiate it." Altuve offered a comment through his agent, Scott Boras: "I have never worn an electronic device in my performance as a major league player." Bregman said nothing.

When the chatter petered out, there was no clarity. The public was no closer to the truth. Beltran's dismissal had unleashed a circular firing squad. MLB wants the public to believe its investigation is thorough and valid, and some players don't seem inclined to buy that and fans just love the lolz and invalid opinions receive unwarranted validation. Monday was historic and Tuesday was drastic and Wednesday was pensive. Thursday was something different. Jan. 16, 2020 was, like the scandal itself, simply wild.

***

NARRATIVES ARE PARASITIC little beings, attaching themselves to hosts and sucking the life out of them, and the emergence of the buzzer theory, however specious it may be, affixed itself with aplomb Thursday to baseball's cheating scandal. Certainly the acceptance of skulduggery in 2020 didn't hurt the rapidity with which it spread, but let's not act like this is some sort of modern novelty. Sports loves a great conspiracy.

The frozen envelope that delivered Patrick Ewing to the Knicks. The reason behind Michael Jordan's first retirement. The power outage that allowed Cal Ripken Jr. to continue his consecutive-games-played streak. Every NBA ref story. Anything involving the Patriots. The buzzers fit this oeuvre.

And ... so did the trash can. That, more than anything, gave Thursday its oxygen. If the Astros were willing to engage in that scheme, what would stop them from taking it a step further? Technology is baseball's lodestar; its limitlessness is something to be exploited by those who found no moral or ethical issues with the trash can. The buzzer will not go away because reason dictates it oughtn't.

It's part of why Thursday was so troublesome for MLB: The narrative got away from the league. From the beginning, MLB has looked into only what has been alleged by reputable sources. The Athletic's story about the Astros spurred an investigation into the Astros, and its story about the Red Sox had the same effect. When asked a week after the initial Astros story broke about the possibility of a wide-ranging, independent investigation to ensure a full accounting of baseball's cheating, Manfred said he did not believe one was necessary.

That approach, sources said, has not changed -- not even with Crane saying after firing Luhnow and Hinch: "The commissioner assured me that every team and every allegation will be checked out, and he'll conduct the same investigation he conducted on us." Players, for one, would be unlikely to participate in a larger-scale, leaguewide investigation, according to sources. In the completed Astros investigation and ongoing Red Sox investigation, the league has promised players immunity in exchange for truthful testimony. Manfred didn't discipline any Astros despite calling the scheme "player-driven." Still, he did name Beltran, whose firing frustrated multiple player representatives in the MLB Players Association, including one who said: "It's easy to say players got off easy when all the info is out. None of that info is gathered if immunity isn't granted. Doesn't really feel like Beltran got immunity right now, does it?"

Communication between the league and union will continue, including in conversations about an overhauled set of rules regarding the use of technology in games. The sides, sources said, are considering a wide array of options -- everything from an outright ban on in-game video to no video from that day's game to less restrictive measures intended to discourage players from cheating. One addition that's almost certain, sources said: suspensions for anyone -- players included -- who uses technology-driven cheating. An announcement on new rules, sources said, is expected before spring training.

Reclaiming control after a calamitous day like Thursday could take time. MLB can't play puppeteer with anyone. All it takes is one person with one social media account to denounce the omertà keeping almost everyone silent and explain everything -- if there's anything to explain. Manfred's report said investigators talked with 68 people connected to the Astros, and 23 of them were players. That means there are plenty of Astros from 2017 to 2019 to whom MLB didn't speak, though that investigation is closed unless someone gives the league reason to reopen it.

Players know the consequences if any additional information surfaces, which is why denials quickly followed accusations Thursday. Former Braves general manager John Coppolella broke rules about international signing bonuses. It was a misdemeanor to the Astros' felony. But Coppolella lied about it. And for that, he remains permanently banned from baseball.

This sign-stealing scandal poses by far the greatest threat of Manfred's commissionership, and a day like Thursday, which introduces something like a buzzer into a landscape ready to believe anything, certainly does no favors. Thursday synopsized what Manfred faces: a scandal that no matter how tidily he tries to bow-wrap it remains, at least for now, maybe forever, amorphous, full of surprises, ever ready to grow another tentacle. It's represented in the nervous calls of executives wondering if disgruntled ex-employees are saying anything, in the feverish Twitterverse fiending for content, in the opportunity for one man to change baseball history just like Mike Fiers did. It's there, coiled and poised, all possibility, every day ready to lose its mind like Jan. 16, 2020.

Two grand finals ready to roll at Grand Central
By SEAN REUTHE – Squash Mad Correspondent

Egypt’s Mohamed ElShorbagy will reclaim the World No.1 spot from current incumbent Ali Farag if he can overcome World Champion Tarek Momen tonight at New York’s Grand Central Terminal when they go head-to-head in the final of the prestigious J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions.

The 29-year-old saw his 12-month reign as World No.1 come to an end when he surrendered a two-game lead to Farag in a final defeat at the 2019 edition of the Tournament of Champions.

But he now has the opportunity to claim top spot for the fourth time after he overcame World No.4 Karim Abdel Gawad, while Farag fell to Momen in all-Egyptian semi-finals line-up in the men’s event.

ElShorbagy was on the losing side in his two previous matches against 2017 champion Gawad, but he put in a peerless display to claim an 11-9, 11-8, 11-8 victory which will see him compete for a third Tournament of Champions title.

“This was the match that I was most nervous for so far in this event,” said ElShorbagy afterwards.

“He was going for it in the first two games and created such a high pace, and I was a bit nervous as well with Ali [Farag] losing the match before me and giving me the possibility of maybe going to World No.1 if I win tomorrow. I had all these things going through my mind.

“I had to use all of my experience and I’m really happy to be back here in another final. This is my sixth tournament this season, and I’ve made five finals. It’s not easy to back it up every season, but there’s nothing else I would want to be doing than playing finals like this.”

Momen, playing his first PSA tournament since capturing the World Championship trophy in November, stormed into a two-game lead against Farag, who looked to be feeling the effects of a 62-minute battle against World No.5 Paul Coll in the quarter-finals.

A loss of concentration and an increase in performance level from Farag saw him draw level at two games apiece, but Momen had just enough in the tank to see the win over the line, and he will compete in a second Tournament of Champions final after falling to Germany’s Simon Rösner in the 2018 title decider.

“All credit to Ali, the way he’s come back after the tough times he has had is just unbelievable and it shows what kind of a fighter he is and it really shows why he is the World No.1 at the moment,” Momen said.

“I knew I had to fight for every point. I was in the situation last April in El Gouna when I was 2-0 up and he managed to come back and win it 12-10 in the fifth. I really didn’t want that to happen again and I had a few chances in the third to close the gap or get a lead and I lost it and in the fourth I thought I was very close and then he ran away with it. I came into the fifth and I wanted to impose some character, I didn’t want to succumb to defeat.”

The women’s final will feature France’s Camille Serme and Egypt’s Nour El Sherbini after they claimed semi-final wins over World No.3 Nouran Gohar and World No.6 Joelle King.

World No.5 Serme, who beat England’s Laura Massaro to win the 2017 Tournament of Champions, overturned five match balls against Gohar to follow up her quarter-final upset of World No.1 Raneem El Welily.

The Frenchwoman initially struggled with the intensity of Gohar’s hitting, but played some immaculate squash to send the match to a fifth game after twice falling a game behind. She then showcased her resilient side to withstand Gohar’s efforts to close out the match, and finally claimed victory on the third of her match balls in the tie-break.

“I’m speechless,” said Serme afterwards. “Nouran is always such a fighter and her nickname ‘The Terminator’ is such a good one because she just hits the ball so hard all the time. It’s funny because I don’t usually see her tired, but today I could see some signs and I thought maybe I could see a chance. So many things happened in my head during the match, I can’t believe I won, I was 10-7 down in the fifth, but I believed.”

Serme has now beaten four Egyptian players en route to the final – with three of those matches going to five games – and she will take on yet another player from that nation when she looks to end a four-match losing streak to El Sherbini.

El Sherbini is aiming to become the first woman to win four Tournament of Champions titles and she booked her final berth after axing King by an 11-6, 11-9, 6-11, 11-3 margin.

The J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions finals begin at 19:00 (GMT-5) and will be shown live on SQUASHTV (rest of world), Eurosport Player (Europe only) and the official Facebook page of the PSA World Tour, in addition to mainstream broadcasters such as BT Sport and Sky Sport NZ.

Grand Central will also host the first ever RAM Champion Challenge, with legendary players Ramy Ashour and Nick Matthew competing in an exhibition match under a RAM scoring format at 17:00. That match will be shown live on SQUASHTV, the official Facebook page of the PSA World Tour and the PSASQUASHTV YouTube channel

2020 J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions, Grand Central Terminal, New York, USA.

Men’s Semi-Finals:
[4] Tarek Momen (EGY) bt [1] Ali Farag (EGY) 3-2: 11-8, 11-7, 7-11, 8-11, 11-7 (76m)
[2] Mohamed ElShorbagy (EGY) bt [3] Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY) 3-0: 11-9, 11-8, 11-8 (47m)

Men’s Final:
[4] Tarek Momen (EGY) v [2] Mohamed ElShorbagy (EGY)

Women’s Semi-Finals: 
[5] Camille Serme (FRA) bt [3] Nouran Gohar (EGY) 3-2: 7-11, 11-9, 9-11, 12-10, 16-14 (78m)
[2] Nour El Sherbini (EGY) bt [6] Joelle King (NZL) 3-1: 11-6, 11-9, 6-11, 11-3 (41m)

Women’s Final:
[5] Camille Serme (FRA) v [2] Nour El Sherbini (EGY)

Report by SEAN REUTHE (PSA). Edited by ALAN THATCHER.

Pictures courtesy of PSA