Here’s a baseball story that doesn’t involve the ongoing labor dispute between millionaires and billionaires.

Friday, a New York judge ruled that a letter sent from Rob Manfred to the New York Yankees, regarding a 2017 team investigation, should be unsealed this Friday, June 19th.

The contents of that letter involve findings from a sign-stealing investigation that allegedly might reveal more than a minor violation that resulted in an undisclosed fine back then.

Question #1 – What does this have to do with the Phillies?

The connection is manager Joe Girardi, who was still managing the Yanks at the time. We don’t know what’s in the letter, and we don’t know if it will be fully released or redacted, so some speculate that there might be information in there regarding cheating that he could theoretically be responsible for.

Question #2 – What actually happened in 2017?

Here’s a blurb from SNY that was written in response to the Astros and Red Sox scandals, but contains info about the Yankees:

At the time, the league announced that the Yankees had “violated a rule governing the use of a dugout phone.” What MLB didn’t say was that no one had accused the Yankees of cheating.

Their previously unreported actual offense, according to major league sources?

A member of the team, likely then-pitching coach Larry Rothschild, used the dugout phone to call replay coordinator Brett Weber and ask if a particular pitch was a ball or a strike. This did not even occur in 2017, but in a prior season. Weber openly admitted this to the league during its investigation. That’s it. Technically a violation, but hardly on the same level as an Apple Watch scheme.

The Red Sox also accused the Yankees of using a YES Network camera to steal signs, but MLB found that those claims had no merit.

After the 2017 season, Manfred announced that violations of this sort would be subject to more significant punishments, and clarified the use of electronic equipment.

Girardi, since joining the Phillies, was asked on a few different occasions to comment on the Astros’ scandal. He noted that sign-stealing has been taking place for years in Major League Baseball, and talked about combating other teams’ cheating attempts in 2017 (ironically, the Yankees were eliminated by Houston that year).

There’s also the case of this video here, where people accused Girardi of admitting to cheating:

Girardi commented on this back in February, explaining that the video was taken out of context and is actually a demonstration of how the Yankees tried to figure out what other teams were doing.

On Girardi, via Matt Breen at the Inquirer:

The subject was sign-stealing, and the cast of MLB Network’s nightly baseball show — Girardi, host Brian Kenney, and former pitcher Al Leiter — detailed how to guard against an opponent’s attempt to steal the signs between a catcher and pitcher and what constitutes crossing the line.

…

The clip — 23 seconds cut from a seven-minute segment – resurfaced this week on social media, leading some to believe that Girardi’s phrase “I was a part of a system” was the manager’s revelation that his Yankees teams used an Astros-like system to steal signs. Girardi is not active on social media, but he saw the clip.

“I laugh,” he said after the Phillies’ spring-training workout Thursday. “Someone brought it to me.”

Girardi said he was talking in the clip about how the Yankees caught on to another team’s method to steal signs and not saying that the Yankees were swiping signs through illegal means.

That was his explanation for the video.

As for this letter, we’ll have to wait and see if it’s unsealed later this week.