The Yankees were turned down in their appeal to keep the infamous sign-stealing letter sealed, and that letter may now be made public in the next two weeks.
The Second Circuit Appeals Court rejected the appeal from team president Randy Levine on Thursday, after Levine motioned back on April 1 that the ruling to unseal the letter from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to the Yankees be reversed.
“We’re disappointed in the Court of Appeals decision, but we respect it,” Levine told the New York Post on Thursday. “However, we think it will lead to very bad results down the road.”
The Yanks had argued that the letter remain sealed since it was part of a lawsuit that didn’t directly implicate the team. The letter was part of a court case involving a $5 million lawsuit from fantasy baseball players using DraftKings, who sued Major League Baseball regarding the sign-stealing scandals of the Astros and Red Sox, both of whom had been penalized for using technology to steal signs from opposing pitchers. That case was thrown out.
The letter reportedly was from Manfred to Yankees general manager Brian Cashman after the Yankees and Red Sox were both fined in 2017, Boston for using Apple Watches (which the Yanks complained to the league about), and the Yanks illegally using bullpen phones.
At the time of the controversy between New York and Boston in 2017, Manfred released this statement:
“We learned that during an earlier championship season (prior to 2017) the Yankees had violated a rule governing the use of the dugout phone. The substance of the communications that took place on the dugout phone was not a violation of any Rule or Regulation in and of itself. Rather, the violation occurred because the dugout phone technically cannot be used for such a communication.”
MLB didn’t penalize the Yankees for the use of dugout phones, though rules were put in place afterward.
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