Couldn’t agree more with Dusty and that’s not as a biased Astro fan but it’s obvious the comments and threats are a horrible look and does NOTHING for the “integrity of the game” that these same idiots keep bellowing about and the media is pushing all of it, more blood! More blood! Really disgusting at this point
Only adds to the negative image of the Astros I'm afraid. Better to keep quiet, refocus discussion on what Astros will do to regain trust. That said, if I'm an Astro batter and a pitcher throws at my head, I march to the mound with my bat and me and the pitcher will be working it out right there and then.
Yeah, you already know these media hacks want them hit. Like when Kornheiser said about Harden "Makes you want to punch him right in the teeth." And when a real brawl happens (not a hold me back brawl), "How ugly for the game." "How bad for the game." ... Nah this is what you media hacks & players wanted. Gotta "punish" them! Spoiler Put it quotes all you want hack. pre•med•i•tate prē-mĕd′ĭ-tāt″► intransitive verb To form an intent to carry out (an action, such as a crime); intend to carry out. intransitive verb To premeditate an action, especially a crime. To meditate beforehand; think about and contrive previously; precogitate. When MLB determines the intent of a pitch is to hit a player, it typically levies a suspension for between three and five games. Dodgers pitcher Alex Wood balked at the idea that Astros players were not disciplined for the sign-stealing scandal -- they traded honest testimony in interviews with MLB for immunity from punishment -- but others could be for throwing at them. "Somebody will take it into their own hands, and they'll get suspended more games than any of those guys got for the biggest cheating scandal in 100 years," Wood said. "It'll be pretty ironic when that happens, because I'm sure that's how it'll end up playing out." "The game has changed," Verlander said. "I think the commissioner has made it very clear in the past few seasons that throwing a baseball at somebody isn't an appropriate form of retaliation in the game anymore. The problem is knowing if it's on purpose or not. But I guess when you come out and say I'm going to do it on purpose, you know."
Joel Sherman is a talentless media hack. What a disgusting Yankee ass kisser that guy is. Does that kind of sanctimonious media ass hole carry a degree? If so that is a damn shame and the institution that handed it to him should be ashamed .
Spoiler Carlos Correa wanted to talk. He had seen what the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger had said on Friday. About how the Astros stole the 2017 World Series from the Dodgers. About how José Altuve stole the American League MVP award in ’17 from the Yankees’ Aaron Judge. About how the Astros have been “cheating for three years.” Correa had been the most remorseful and eloquent of the Astros’ players when the team spoke publicly for the first time on Thursday. He was more passionate and forceful on Saturday morning in an interview that will air later on MLB Network, defending the legitimacy of the Astros’ only World Series title, and in particular defending the legitimacy of Altuve. Here is a partial transcript of the interview, edited slightly for length and clarity. Correa: Well, usually I don’t have problems when people talk about 2017 and about what happened that year because honestly we were wrong. Everything that happened that year was absolutely wrong and we obviously show remorse for that because we really feel bad about everything that happened in 2017. The problem I have is when players go out there and they don’t know the facts, they’re not informed about the situation and they just go out there and go on camera and just talk. With me, that doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem right at all. So when he (Bellinger) talks about that we cheated for three years he either doesn’t know how to read, is really bad at reading comprehension, or is just not informed at all. The commissioner’s report clearly says that all those activities were conducted in 2017. 2018 nothing happened. 2019 nothing happened. It was just talented players, playing the game of baseball with passion and winning ballgames. Rosenthal: In 2018, it did say you guys did things. (The report states, “prior to the 2018 season, and with MLB approval, the Astros relocated their replay review system to a video room located much closer to the dugout, as is the case in many ballparks throughout the league. The investigation uncovered no evidence that Astros players utilized the banging scheme in 2018. However, the Astros’ replay review room continued, at least for part of the 2018 season, to decode signs using the live center field camera feed, and to transmit the signs to the dugout through in-person communication. At some point, the Astros stopped using the replay review room to decode signs because the players no longer believed it was effective.”) Correa: Yeah, but it said about the “Codebreaker” (an algorithm the Astros had developed to decode signs more quickly, according to the Wall Street Journal) but not about the trash can or any of that. That stuff, it came from the top on the “Codebreaker” but we don’t know about that stuff down there. So when I look at those comments, they’re not true. 2018 we played clean. 2019 we got to a World Series playing clean baseball all around. (Correa later clarified, off camera, that he meant the Astros did not use the trash-can banging system in 2018 or ’19.) Correa: So when we move forward and he talks about Altuve. He says, “José Altuve cheated Judge out of the MVP.” Cody, you don’t know the facts. Nobody wants to talk about this but I’m going to talk about this. José Altuve was the one guy that didn’t use the trash can. The few times that the trash can was banged was without his consent and he would go inside the clubhouse and inside the dugout to whoever was banging the trash can and he would get pissed. He would get mad. He would say, “I don’t want this. I can’t hit like this. Don’t you do that to me.” He played the game clean. The bangs that are on Twitter or whatever, that shows it. Altuve played clean the whole year. When you look at Altuve’s numbers on the road, he hit .400 on the road (.381 actually, compared to .311 at home). He didn’t cheat nobody of the MVP. He earned that MVP. He’s a six-time all-star, three-time batting champion, MVP, five-time Silver Slugger. He’s been doing this for a long time. For him to go out there and defame José Altuve’s name like that, it doesn’t sit right with me. The man plays the game clean. That’s easy to find out. Mike Fiers broke the story. You can go out and ask Mike Fiers, “Did José Altuve use the trash can? Did José Altuve cheat to win the MVP?” Mike Fiers is going to tell you, straight up, he didn’t use it. He was the one player that didn’t use it. Josh Reddick, Tony Kemp, those guys they didn’t want the trash can at all. So when he sits there and talks about Altuve, it’s not facts. The reason José Altuve apologized to the media was for being part of the team and for not stopping it. But he’s not apologizing for using the trash can. He’s not apologizing for cheating because he did not cheat . . . José Altuve earned that MVP and he’s been showing that for years. Rosenthal: Okay, 2019, the buzzer. Bellinger also questioned Altuve’s actions after he hit the home run to clinch the ALCS. He questioned why he refused to have his jersey ripped off and believed that maybe that was the reason. Correa: I want to address that as well. 2019, nobody wore buzzers. That’s a lie. The reason José Altuve didn’t want to get his shirt ripped off, I’m going to tell you. Earlier in the year, he hit a walk-off at Minute Maid Park, I ripped off his shirt with Tony Kemp. There are pictures of that. There are videos of that. You can go look at it. I ripped off his shirt and his wife told my wife, “Why is Carlos ripping Altuve’s shirt? I don’t like that.” So when he’s running from third base to home plate, I’m the guy up front. The first one waiting for him. He’s like, “don’t take my shirt off.” The second reason – he doesn’t want me to talk about this but I’m going to say it, is because he’s got an unfinished tattoo on his collarbone, that honestly looked terrible. It was a bad tattoo and he didn’t want nobody to see it. He didn’t want to show it at all. So, one, he didn’t want to take his shirt off because his wife had told my wife earlier in the year for me to not to do that. So he was telling me not to do it. And, number two, he had an unfinished tattoo that looked kinda bad, that he didn’t want people to see and people to talk about. That was the reason. But Altuve has never cheated. He didn’t cheat in 2017 when nobody knew about the system. Why would he cheat in 2019? . . . Altuve has played the game clean. Always. Always. He earned that MVP. He hit that home run off (Aroldis) Chapman, fair and square. He was not wearing buzzers. That’s a story that a fake account on Twitter broke and then people just got on that wagon and started talking about the buzzers. Like, no. Nobody thought about buzzers. Nobody was using buzzers. Rosenthal: Okay, do you understand, Carlos, that if the commissioner’s report says that there was cheating in 2017 and cheating in 2018, do you understand why players would think that maybe you cheated again in 2019? Correa: I can understand why players might think that. But the report is there and it says that in 2019 nothing happened. You’re telling me that 2018 and I’m telling you that 2018 was something in the video room but there was nothing in-game that was ruining the game like the trash can. What we did in 2017, yeah, it was an advantage. Yeah, it was wrong. Yeah, we feel bad about it. Because it’s completely . . . it’s just bad. It’s just bad. It’s a bad look for our organization. It’s a bad look for us players. But I’m here to tell you, José Altuve earned that MVP. That’s his MVP and nobody can take that away from him.
Spoiler Rosenthal: Did you guys earn the 2017 World Series title? Correa: That’s something I want to address also. When he says that we cheated them out of a ring, I go analyze the games. Game 2, they’re winning the game, ninth inning Marwin Gonzalez hits a home run off Kenley Jansen, and we end up winning that game. That game was on the road. That’s one game. Game 3, we win 5-3. Yuli (Gurriel) hits a solo homer. Marwin hits a (single) with men on first and second. To all the fans out there, when there is a guy on second, catchers and pitchers they use multiple signs. In the World Series, they don’t use the same multiple signs they do in the regular season. The games are way too important. Those signs can’t be decoded. They’re hard signs. Marwin hits a (single) with men on first and second. That’s (two) runs. Brian McCann hits a single with a man on second. Again, multiple signs. That’s (three) runs. (Alex Bregman added a sacrifice fly later that inning). Evan Gattis, with Reddick at first, hits a chopper to the pitcher (Tony) Watson. He throws it away. Reddick scores from first. Those are the five runs we scored that day. Game 5, one of the best games of all-time. I hit a double with a man on second, that’s one run. Yuli hits a home run with a man on second. Again, multiple signs. Nobody knows what’s coming. Rosenthal: So you guys did not have their signs? Correa: No, no. I’m telling you, World Series games are too important to use easy signs. There are Morse codes out there. There are signs that nobody can get. There are so many variations you can use, and nobody can get that. Yuli hits the homer. That’s four runs (starting with a Correa RBI double). Altuve hits a home run off (Kenta) Maeda with men on first and second. Again, multiple signs. Alex Bregman hits a walk-off single with a pinch-runner, Derek Fisher. He was a pinch-runner. He doesn’t know what’s going on in the game. He hasn’t been at second base the whole World Series. He doesn’t know what is happening behind the plate. Bregman hits a walk-off single with a man on second. Again, multiple signs. We go to Game 7. George Springer, leadoff double (in the first inning). Alex Bregman hits a ground ball to Cody Bellinger (at first base). He throws it away. People say pitching and defense win ballgames. We end up winning Game 7 on the road. There was no trash-can on the road, no cheating on the road. When I analyze all the games, we earned that championship. We didn’t steal it. Instead of talking about it, he should have done something about it. When you look at the World Series, they left so many guys on base in Game 7, throughout the whole World Series. Cody didn’t have a good World Series (Bellinger went 4-for-28, with all of hits going for extra bases). For him to be talking about us stealing that championship, don’t talk about it. You should not be talking about it. You should have done something about it. When you analyze the games, we won fair and square. We earned that championship. Rosenthal: How would you feel if you were on a team that this had happened to? If you were on the other side of this? How would you feel if the Astros had done to your team what was done? Correa: Absolutely, you feel bad and we feel bad as a team. Don’t think that we feel great because we cheated that year and we got away with it and all that. No. We’ve got to go to bed every single night thinking about what we did and how wrong it was. We’ve got to live with that. (Bellinger) said that they all lost respect for us. But that’s not how life works. We all make mistakes. And because you make a mistake, people are not going to lose respect for you. It’s how you confront those mistakes that you make. You’ve got to admit to those mistakes. You’ve got to accept those mistakes. You’ve got to learn from them. You’ve got to change so you don’t make those mistakes again. And you’ve got to move on with a clean slate. You can’t be judged by the first mistake you make. That’s not how life works at all. So for him to go out there and say that he lost respect for a six-time All-Star, five-time Silver Slugger, MVP, Gold Glover, that has been doing this for so many years, and he didn’t cheat in 2017 because he got mad at whoever was banging the trash can while he was hitting, is just straight up disrespectful. So when he talks about respect, you’ve got to respect your peers to be respected. Everybody in the league respects José Altuve and this is why I’m talking about him, because he’s too humble to talk about him not using the trash can system. And he’s such a great guy that he stood up there and he apologized even though he didn’t use that system. He only apologized for not stopping it. So when you disrespect José Altuve’s name, it doesn’t sit well with me. The guy is going to be a future Hall of Famer. His integrity is impeccable. It’s off the charts. He’s one of the nicest guys you will meet and he didn’t cheat. So he earned that MVP. So, for me, when he talks about respect, you’ve got to respect your peers if you want to be respected.
Spoiler Rosenthal: Do you believe the Dodgers stole signs illegally during the 2017 World Series? Correa: You know what, I’m not here to blame other teams. I’m not here to put the spotlight on other teams. We’re here, now in spring training, and everybody is talking about the Houston Astros and what we did in 2017. We’ve got to take that on the chin. Whatever people have to say. The facts that people have to say, we’ve got to take that on the chin. But, like I said before, what doesn’t sit well with me is when you say false statements. If you don’t know the facts. If you’re not informed. This is America. You can say whatever you want. But Cody Bellinger’s job is to look for information. Get informed. Know the facts, for sure, before he stands in front of cameras to talk about other players. You should get informed. You should be informed before you talk about other players. If you don’t know the facts, then you’ve got to shut the f–k up. Rosenthal: A number of players have expressed frustration, even anger, that the Astros players were not punished. Do you understand that sentiment? Correa: Absolutely. I understand it. And, like I said, what we did is not right. When we were waiting for the commissioner’s report, anything could happen. But when he talked to us in the investigation he told us that we had immunity in order for all the players to talk and tell the truth about what happened. So, with that being said, if somebody grants you immunity then they can’t take that back and just punish you after they told you that you have immunity. So he’s calling our owner weak. Our owner, he’s calling weak. A guy . . . who made so much money that he could buy the Houston Astros, didn’t know about what was going on early in 2017, and you’re going to sit there because he’s trying his best to protect our organization and… Rosenthal: No, he said he didn’t think what you guys did affected the games and we all know that it affected the games. Correa: But you’ve got to understand that he’s not a baseball player like we are. You’re around baseball all the time. You talk to us all the time. I know for a fact, as a player, that if I know what’s coming I’m going to have an advantage. But he doesn’t stand up there and hit. He just knows that hitting is just hard. You know what I mean? So when you think hitting is hard, you think that even if you know what’s coming it’s hard. Because he doesn’t play baseball. He’s not around the game like you are. You talk to all of us. I tell you I was looking for this pitch. I was looking for that. And you know if you’re looking for a pitch, I’ve got a better chance of hitting it. So his statement that day, he’s not a baseball player. He’s an owner. He hires people to do the job for him. But, as the owner, he has to show his face and sit up there and talk to the media, all right. But we all know, as players, that yeah, we do have an advantage. But as an owner, that doesn’t play the game of baseball at this level, that is not asking questions and around like all the reporters are, to the players, he doesn’t know what kind of advantage we have by knowing because, from afar, it looks hard. And you think that even if you know what’s coming, hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. So, yeah, I heard his comments. But I’m not going to judge him for that because I know he doesn’t play the game of baseball and he’s not around as much as we are and he doesn’t understand how hard it is to hit a ball, and know how more convenient it is to know what’s coming. Rosenthal: Your manager and your GM got fired because of the actions of your players. How much does that bother you? Correa: It hurts. I’ve only known one manager before this year, and that’s AJ Hinch. I love him to death. I would do anything for him. He’s a stand-up guy, a very smart guy. We all admire him. Same with Luhnow. He’s the one that drafted me. He gave me the chance to be the first pick overall (in 2012). He was great to me and great to this organization. It’s just sad to see them leave like that. But at the same time, it was a decision that came from above. We had no say on that. Our owner decided to do that. Now it’s time to move forward with Dusty (Baker) and our new GM (James) Click, and be able to play this year and play good baseball again – and gain the trust of the fans. This year, we want to go out and show the fans that we are talented, that we can play the game, that we can win ballgames. That what happened in 2017 does not define us. We still feel terrible. It’s 2020, two-and-something years after that happened, and we still feel bad about it. We go to bed thinking about that. What people have to say, that’s all their right. Because we were wrong. And they can say whatever they want. Because we were wrong. But when players stand up there and they accuse of stuff that didn’t happen in 2019, that doesn’t sit well with me.
Makes perfect sense. Rosenthal broke it and is the best source to go to to get this out, Chandler, you'll get CC all year, get over it
In 72 hours I have gone from thinking Carlos Correa is a douche to thinking he is an absolute ****ing badass and I really hope the Astros give him $300M. He’s the only one doing the right thing in this ordeal, inside the Org or out. He said it: Altuve, Reddick, Kemp didn’t cheat. All the guys who cheated owe it to these guys to make sure everyone knows. Kudos to Altuve for taking it for the team but F that, the cheaters need to own it and make sure the guys who didn’t cheat get absolved.
I always believed Altuve was better than that. I hope Correa's interview at least sets the record straight for all the f**king analysts blasting Altuve left and right. Altuve is taking a lot of sh_t from everyone...even questioning the Chapman dinger to send us to the World Series last season. Everyone wants to forget about how great a hitter Altuve was before 2017. Correa may have a point about how we won the World Series fair and square based on the multiple signs. But, can the same be said for the preceding playoff series that we had to win to get there? It's obvious that the mob mentality has taken over and the Astros are to be blamed for everything whether fact or not.
