Stark with an excellent summation of his Beltran decision:
I also look at the pre-testing PED era and wonder how we’re supposed to have any idea who was “cheating” and who wasn’t. It’s not like baseball ever handed us a list. In the same way, I look at the Astros and wonder how many other teams were doing pretty much what they were doing — except no one could prove it.
I think about the reporting by Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich in The Athletic, which told of Beltrán arriving in Houston, after three seasons with the Yankees, and telling the Astros that their sign-stealing methods were “behind the times.” I can’t get that quote out of my head. Doesn’t it tell us how rampant the use of technology-aided sign stealing was in other places, before the Astros ever got good at it?
What really pisses me off is that the average MLB fan still believes the Astros are the Darth Vader of sports and were the only guilty party. I have a flag-waving Yankmee fan living across the street from me here in Georgetown. He still believes the Astros deprived the Yankmees of their ordained right to the championship in '17.
That’s one of the few things about the average MLB fan that makes me happy. I hope the hate eats them up. I’d remind that neighbor every single day that the 20217 World Series Champion Houston Astros stole his soul.
I was a 17 year old Scot-o-phile in San Antonio when that came out. I watched the movie, marched across the parking lot and confidently bought a six pack of McEwans. It was the first time in my life I wasn’t carded.
