DETROIT — The Yankees struck out in their attempt to keep sealed a letter from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to general manager Brian Cashman that allegedly provides details into a sign-stealing scheme.
On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected a motion filed April 1 by the Yankees and team president Randy Levine for the court to reverse its March 21 ruling to have the letter unsealed.
The letter may now be made public in the next two weeks.
The argument was based on a contention the letter would harm the Yankees’ reputation as part of a since-dismissed lawsuit in which it was not involved.
“We’re disappointed in the Court of Appeals decision, but we respect it,” Levine said by phone Thursday. “However, we think it will lead to very bad results down the road.”
The Yankees had made public their argument they were “not a party to this case” and MLB mistakenly produced the letter in court.
The case was a $5 million lawsuit by fantasy baseball players that used DraftKings against MLB, the Astros and Red Sox regarding the illegal sign-stealing scandals that occurred in 2017 and 2018. It was tossed last month.
The letter is said to deal with a pair of sign-stealing incidents committed by the Yankees, including the improper use of a dugout phone in a season before 2017, as well as references to some Yankees players stationing themselves in the team’s replay room in an attempt to steal opponents’ signs, then relaying that information to runners on second base to try to tell the hitter what was coming.
MLB previously released information about the use of the dugout phone and absolved the Yankees of any penalty for these actions, saying in a statement “we clarified the rules going forward to expressly prohibit such conduct.”
In the appeal, the Yankees noted the letter stemmed from an MLB investigation of the team and “such investigation was not subject to judicial review in this lawsuit.”