NBC.com's Circling the Bases blog furthers the question posed by Richard Justice (and a nice shout-out to the Crawfish Boxes) on whether or not the Astros are hypocrites by signing Brett Myers (and his wife-beatery), when they once dropped Julio Lugo like 3rd-period French before charges had even been filed.
Craig Calcaterra:
In the case of Lugo and Myers I can see a distinction in that Lugo's thing was happening in real time while Myers' was some time ago and maybe, just maybe, he's made some kind of showing of rehabilitation or whatever that Lugo had not yet had a chance to do. And it's probably worth noting that, though no one ever disputed what happened with Myers and his wife, the charges were dropped...
...But it's one thing to cast judgment from afar and another thing altogether to run a ballclub. If I had to make a choice right now I'd probably cut Lugo, say no to Myers and steer clear of anyone else with that kind of history. But I think the issue is a bit too complicated in practice for the Astros to be accused of hypocrisy on this point.
You can't accuse Ed Wade of hypocrisy. After all, he's not the one who cut Lugo. The only one who could be accused of this is Drayton, and he should at least have to answer what the difference is between Lugo and Myers.
But let's say for argument's sake that the Astros cut Lugo on Monday and signed Myers on Tuesday. That would be hypocrisy. For the two events to have happened almost seven years apart, it's hard to make that same allegation. Lugo's offense happened in the Minute Maid Park's parking lot. Myers' happened late one night in Boston. There's no way to excuse either of their actions, but Lugo's was a much more fire-able offense. Lugo went to trial (after the Astros cut him), Myers' wife declined to press charges. There are a lot of differences between Lugo and Myers, and there are a lot of similarities. There are just a few more differences.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
