I think he is entertaining and I watch his non-Astros stuff sometimes. His Yankee bias is admitted, but his animosity toward the Astros helped to begin and fueled the media frenzy over “sign-stealing.” His breakdowns completely (deliberately?) confused the huge difference between illegally getting signs with technology during games and legal methods of getting signs and pitch-tipping through players eyes and studying video of past games. Most of the great unwashed so -called fans now think telling a hitter what pitch is coming is cheating. No!
The part of this I hate most is the media’s saying Altuve’s homer off of Chapman must have been tainted by cheating because he “admitted” he was sitting on a slider. Goodfuckinggrief! Mark Raup and Jim Raup, sitting in section 13something, knew and said a slider was coming because Chapman was wild high and outside with his fastball. Cheating? No!
Look Jim everyone knows that the Astros would have went 0-162 without stealing signs, so there’s no way in hell that Altuve could ever have hit poor Chapman’s hanging slider. It doesn’t matter that everyone in the world knew a slider was coming because Chapman couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with his fastball, Altuve CHEATED THE ASTROS ARE CHEATERS. God I can’t wait for the season to start and the Astros go full patriots on their ass and blow everyone out of the water all year on their way to another title.
Drink in the hate and let it fuel you. We’re the bad guys now and frankly, I’m ready to tell everyone out there to choke on these Astro dicks
The Athletic has an article, which I won’t link, where they discuss the impact of the dastardly Astros sign stealing with 9 demoted pitchers.
I read it - nothing to see here. Of the 9 pitchers the author identified, only four could be found or were willing to give comment, and even then they all did so anonymously.
The first one tipped his cap to the Astros, called them a talented lineup, and said he needed to make better pitches. The second one said his demotion was warranted even before facing the Astros. The third said he didn’t remember hearing any trashcan banging. The fourth said he had no animosity toward Houston.
Of those four guys, one said it had always bugged him that it was harder to beat the Astros at home than it was on the road (curious post-hoc reasoning, ignoring that the Astros’ road record in 2017 was better than their home record and that, in general, home teams are considered to have an advantage). That same pitcher said he would be happy to speculate about the effect on his career if MLB substantiates the Fiers allegations.
If you’re pitching your editor, it’s a reasonable angle for an article, but I suspect the author (apparently The Athletic’s Dodgers reporter, if that matters to you) was hoping to get a lot more red meat than what she actually turned up.
I’ve been wondering…if this sign-stealing happened as reported by Fiers, why did it just come to the surface recently? Wouldn’t there be other ex-Astros that would throw the club under the bus if they could for whatever reason? Particularly now that it has been reported. And players talk to each other. Fiers has probably told everyone around him that would listen. Seems odd to me.
Oh, I know it’s legal. I think that’s the biggest falsehood that Jomboy et al have spread in this whole fiasco: that signaling the field from the dugout/tunnel/bathroom on the Loge level is against this rules.
It’s a very short article. Here’s the only substance:
MLB has leads it is pursuing relating to the 2018 Astros, sources said. The violations suggested by those leads were not nearly at the same level of those that took place in ’17, and any wrongdoing, if it occurred, may have been more sporadic in nature.
The league wants the investigation to be completed as soon as possible. One rumor that circulated at the Winter Meetings was a belief the league intended to release its report prior to Christmas. But too much needs to happen for MLB to comfortably proceed on that schedule.
And then there’s some random vitriol:
Other teams want the Astros to receive severe punishments.
“This is his Landis moment,” one executive in the sport said recently of Manfred, referring to commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis’ handling of the 1919 White Sox cheating scandal.
