Boston Red Sox owner John Henry and chairman Tom Werner apologized to the owners of MLB's 29 other teams during a Wednesday conference call after the league's investigation concluded the club illegally stole signs during the 2018 regular season.
Henry and Werner "took full responsibility" for the incident during the call, Red Sox president Sam Kennedy told reporters, including Christopher Smith of MassLive.com.
MLB handed the Red Sox a punishment that includes the loss of a 2020 second-round draft pick and a one-year ban for video replay operator J.T. Watkins, whom the league identified as the chief culprit in Boston's sign-stealing. Watkins cannot hold the same role in 2021.
Former Red Sox manager Alex Cora has also been banned through the 2020 campaign, but only for his role in the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scheme in 2017.
"I believe MLB went above and beyond in order to ascertain facts that led to their conclusion and I support the findings," Henry wrote in an email to Alex Speier of The Boston Globe.
Henry and Werner specifically apologized to the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees, Speier notes, after members of those organizations faced questions during spring training about the legitimacy of Boston's 2018 World Series win.
Such questions, Henry wrote in his email, "created a terrible environment (for those teams) for a prolonged period (at the start of 2020)."
Henry also believes MLB's report should leave little doubt that the team did not cheat during the 2018 playoffs after the league found no evidence of postseason wrongdoing.
"What I regret most about all of this, beyond the toll it took on our organization, is the position it put our fans in - having for months to wonder if the 2018 championship could actually be the result of unfair play," the 70-year-old said. "It's clear from the report that these isolated occurrences in 2018 happened during the regular season.
"The report references how often those instances called into question had an opportunity to take place and within the context of the overall season, all one has to do is the math to see the net potential result. But I'll let others do the math."
Henry didn't address whether the Red Sox would be interested in re-hiring Cora, but chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom reiterated Wednesday that the team parted ways with the skipper because of his role with the Astros.
