Yeah, they stole signs - but honestly - I don't care all that much. Does it taint the championship, yep, but it doesn't change the feelings I had when they won.....so...meh. DD
The title is tainted and so are the players' reputations. It is what it is, still a fan, but it's definitely a kick in the nuts.
Only if you want it to be. Which WS titles are "tainted"? Go back to the 60's or beyond - amphetamines, cocaine, steroids...oh, and sign stealing, etc - , just let me know which ones are legit. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/01/sports/sports-of-the-times-branca-knew-51-giants-stole-signs.html
The best way to tackle the issue is by adding in relativity... as in which titles are perceived by the collective public as the most tainted. That I think gives you a better idea of what titles were considered polluted. likely 1. Black Sox 2. A’s: McGwire and Canseco 3. Yankees: Clemens, Pettitte and Giambi 4. Astros: Bregman and Crew 5. Red Sox: David Ortiz and Ramirez Everything else like the strike shortened season, Bobby thompson, pete rose, the metrodome breezes all pale in comparison to these 5. Pete Rose titles were never really tainted in the public eye as much as he himself was.
Intresting too that Pete Rose hit .335 in 1968 ( just before they lowered it by 10 inches )... when the Yankees only hit .214 collectively against the league wide high mounds. And they had Mantle. It makes u think a little bit. How did Pete Rose, the true black stain of that era, really do it when the entire league was .237 for the most part.
'68 was the last year of the high mound, they lowered it 5" in '69. https://bosoxinjection.com/2013/12/13/pitching-mound-history/ Rose killed RHP in his prime, he was good but not great against lefties. Can you imagine Altuve as a switch-hitter? That's Rose.
https://sports.yahoo.com/inside-one...his-team-cheated-sign-stealing-155724616.html A big question that goes right to his core as a fan: Will he go to an Astros game this year? “I’m not sure,” Adams said. “I think eventually I might, but I don’t see how I can look at that banner up there and look at it with pride. “If they were to take the banner down voluntarily, that might go a long way.” Bye nerd! Like the "Rockets fan" who put out the Harden defense video years ago. What kind of "fan" does that?
Jim Crane wanted to espouse the moral high ground with firing GM and Coach, but balked at the idea that World Series Win in 2017 was tainted, he should have just been consistent, and voluntarily forfeited it, and then say "we want to earn it, without having any impression that we cheated to win" then he would have the moral high ground - frankly he didn't want to give up something he thought had value to the franchise. Easy to fire people who he probably was jealous of getting all the credit anyway, and were disposable and easily replaceable in his mind.
Eh - it's not entirely his to give away. The players won that title. Simply from a leadership perspective, he'd be reviled by his own employees if he took away something from them. "Voluntarily" taking away past accomplishments from other people would make him both a shitty person and a shitty leader.
S**t like this is why some of us are rolling out eyes over all the hand wringing. The Astros before 2017, got rid of Rasmus, Valbuena, Gomez, Castro, Reed, Teoscar and P.Tucker. Between them they had 1855 PA and struck out in 29% of them. They replaced them with Beltran,McCann, Reddick, Aoki and Gurriel who all have track records of being low K players. When you turn over almost 1/3 of your PA from High K hitters to low K hitters, of course your K rate is gonna plummet. Not to mention a bunch of young hitters who were already trending in a positive direction before the season. I'm not gonna say the sign stealing played no role, but at this point people can just throw any s**t they want at us and it will be OK. So yeah, forgive us if we aren't feeling too guilty at this point.
Gattis also had lots of strikeouts and more plate attempts in 2016. But yea, losing Castro, Rasmus, and Gomez alone were a huge difference maker. Then you replace them with low K guys. It can’t be ignored when they try to make this as if it’s solely because of stealing signs.
Has Mike Fiers apologized yet. I know Keuchel apologized, and I know Crane said the Astros players would be apologizing this spring. But Fiers remained silent when he played for the Astros and benefited from the cheating in 2017. When is Fiers going to apologize?
