Yankees: Former Astros slugger said ‘it was fun’ implementing cheating scandal
New York Yankees fans are quite frankly sick of hearing about the Houston Astros and their sign-stealing scandal, but new stories just keep on coming.
This time, it’s former MLB slugger Evan Gattis talking to Astros fans in the UK! Just what you expected, right?
Gattis appeared on the ‘Stros Across the Globe podcast and talked at length about the team’s rule-breaking activity back in 2017, which helped net them a World Series, and it was probably the most candid account from any player that was involved and addressed the media about it.
While he now understands the severity of the transgressions in the aftermath, Gattis did NOT feel that way when the Astros were making their run.
That’s gotta make it sting all the worse for Yankees fans, who are still (in a sense) reeling from this and wondering “what could have been” since they were one game away from the World Series in 2017. Plus, we don’t really know if the cheating continued through 2019. We’re definitely not going to assume it didn’t.
Even worse? Gattis calling the cheating at the time “f–king fun.”
Evan Gattis’ comments on Astros’ cheating will infuriate Yankees fans.
Gattis said many other teams knew exactly what the Astros were doing, but didn’t say anything to MLB because those other teams were also implementing some sort of sign-stealing strategy of their own. However, Gattis did seem to indicate the Astros were going a bit above and beyond the unsavory practices that were standard across the league.
“Pitchers were like, ‘Hey, this is f–ked up,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, no shit,’ but, at that point, when playing, I really didn’t care. Now, I get it. Now, I understand,” Gattis said on the podcast.
Interestingly enough, Gattis also claimed the Dodgers were stealing signs in a similar fashion to the Astros.
https://twitter.com/AstrosFansUK/status/1409877224958967813?s=20
Why even think about believing what he said? Because he’s one of the few players who admitted to the totality of what the Astros did, acknowledged he was willfully part of (and supportive of) the operation, and was happy it ended in a championship.
At the very least, you have to respect the honesty, but it really doesn’t make Yankees fans (or Red Sox and Dodgers fans) feel any better about it.