Who knew that Rob Manfred would turn out to be a hanging judge?

He's been commissioner of baseball for five years, but until this month he'd always been thought of as "Bud Selig's guy." No more. He has emerged from under the shadow of his long-time predecessor and become the most feared commissioner since Kenesaw Mountain Landis took the job a century ago.

Manfred dropped the hammer on the electronic sign stealing in baseball that has been going on for years. So far, he's given what amounts to the death penalty to the following people: Alex Cora, the manager of the Red Sox; A. J. Hinch, manager of the Houston Astros; Jeff Luhnow, Houston's general manager; and Carlos Beltran, the almost-manager of the New York Mets. He didn't actually pull the trigger himself; he merely suspended Hinch and Luhnow from baseball for a year, thereby handing the loaded gun to Astros' owner Jim Crane who did the deed. Red Sox ownership then led Cora to the gallows as a preemptive strike before the results of MLB's investigation into them came out. Carlos Beltran was not punished by the commissioner, mention was punishment enough. The Mets, who had named him manager on Nov. 1st, pulled the plug on him before he even managed a game, making him the only undefeated manager ever to have been fired.

Nobody saw this coming. In 2017, when the Red Sox got caught up in the so-called Apple Watch sign-stealing caper and the Yankees were nabbed in a similar scheme, the teams were fined unannounced amounts and no suspensions or other punishments were assessed. The commissioner did issue a warning that serious consequences would result if anyone did it again. It turns out that he wasn't kidding.

The teams all treated his warning the way I reacted years ago when my mother would say, "Just wait until your father comes home, young man," after I'd committed some venial sin. After a while I began to understand that as long as I worked my way back into her good graces my father would be told nothing and I'd escape all punishment. The threat that my mother would tell on me was a hollow one.

Rob Manfred was a lot more serious about his warning than my dear mother ever was about hers. Hi-tech sign-stealing is now a capital offense.

Sign-stealing has been going on for as long as baseball has been played. Ever since the 19th century, when catchers began waggling their fingers at pitchers to indicate what they should throw, there have been guys on the other side sneaking peeks, trying to determine what each waggle means. It's only since electronic devices came into use that there's been any controversy. The more sophisticated those devices have become, the greater the controversy.

In 1951, when the New York Giants came back from a 13 and a half game deficit in mid-August to catch the Brooklyn Dodgers and then won the pennant on Bobby Thomson's famous "Miracle on Coogan's Bluff" home run in a playoff, it turned out they'd been stealing signs. Since mid-season, during home games, manager Leo Durocher had stationed one of his coaches, Herman Franks, in the Giants' clubhouse. That clubhouse was located in centerfield of the Polo Grounds, more than five hundred feet from home plate, but Franks was equipped with a high powered telescope and a buzzer system connected to the Giants' bullpen. Using the telescope, he could easily read the opposing catcher's signs and then buzz the bullpen, one buzz for a fastball, two for a curve. Reserve catcher Sal Yvars, stationed out there and casually holding a baseball, would relay to the hitter what pitch was coming. If he tossed the ball into the air it was a curve; if he held onto it, a fastball.

No one can tell with certainty if the system made a difference, but let the record show that the Giants went 23 and 5 at home to close out that year.

No punitive action was ever taken against the Giants for their actions, largely because they didn't come to light until 50 years later when the Wall Street Journal exposed them. Durocher, the manager and the ma n behind the scheme, was never punished because he had the good sense to die in 1991, a decade before the Journal story was published. Leo was a colorful character with a wise-guy demeanor who played and managed by his own rules. Famed for the phrase, "Nice guys finish last," he was suspended from baseball for the 1947 season for consorting with gamblers. Despite those things, or perhaps because of them, he was posthumously enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 1994.

When teams or individuals engage in a competition, it is only natural that one side or the other, or both, will look for an edge. It's why some pitchers have spat upon, scuffed, cut, and otherwise doctored baseballs, to give them an advantage over their mortal enemies, hitters. Conversely, it's why some hitters hollow out their bats and fill them with cork, not because the cork makes balls go farther, but because it makes the bats lighter, thus speeding up their swings. It's the speed of the swing which propels the ball for great distances.

It was to gain an edge that performance enhancing drugs became all the rage two decades ago. It got to the point where ballplayers looked more like bodybuilders -- and darned near ruined the game in the process.

Anyhow, there's a new sheriff in town when it comes to enforcing the law against illegal sign stealing -- and he's the commissioner, Rob Manfred. He's let the baseball world know that he's the man in charge now. He's baseball's new strongman. But even the strongest of men have their limits. For all the bodies that Manfred has left in his wake, not one active player was punished by him; to do so would have brought down upon him the wrath of the Major League Baseball Players Association, and Manfred is strong enough, and smart enough, to know not to pick a fight that he can't win.

- Dick Flavin is a New York Times bestselling author; the Boston Red Sox "Poet Laureate" and The Pilot's recently minted Sports' columnist.