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2020 astros offseason


elfenix

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There's a couple things that amaze me about all these dumb asses bashing on the Astros:

1. Right or wrong, cheating has been engrained into the fabric of the game of baseball for as long as the game has been played.  People have been caught with pine tar, nail files, thumbtacks, corked bats, steroids, hacking into other teams' databases, etc. and yet you think the Astros are the only team that has cheated? You think the Astros are the only team engaging in sign stealing, something that has been part of the game since the beginning?  That line of logic is just unfuckin believable to me.  

2. Some former/current players/coaches have come out highlighting the fact I made above....that this kind of thing goes on everywhere.  Yet the Astros haters online and all through social media don't buy this, they refuse to accept this shit that is coming directly from people who are or were directly involved in the game.  Yet some random ass Yankee fan on Twitter presents a cockamamie theory about buzzers with absolutely ZERO proof or evidence and they treat it as gospel.  Once again, that line of logic is incredibly stupid as shit.

3.  I love how these people just love to throw around the words "tainted" or "asterisk" as if I or ever other Astros fan out there should give a shit that some ill-informed dumb ass online thinks our title is "tainted".  Guess what....that championship ain't going anywhere.  My great grandparents were season ticket holders with the Astros ever since they began playing in the Astrodome (I have their ticket stubs from the very first Astros game played there).  My aunt worked for the Astros all through the 90s and into the 2000s as I was growing up and I took several road trips to Houston from SA every summer to go see the games with my Aunt.  All this is just to say that my love for the Astros runs in my blood.  And that joy and excitement that I had watching the Astros win the World Series against the Dodgers in 2017 is something that I will never forget and that I will cherish for the rest of my life and there is nothing that these dumb shits can do to take that away from me or any other Astros fan.  You can say it's "tainted" all you want but guess what?  We don't give a shit about your stupid opinion, neither the WS trophy nor that gold 17 WS pennant in the outfield are going anywhere.  

Forever champs, and the rest of the league can suck it!  Houston vs everyone in 2020, can't wait to see the hate when we win it again this year.  

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3 hours ago, runthebone said:

At this point, I don't know who else is left to ask.  Maybe NASCAR drivers because they will say cheating is fine and is part of their culture, just like baseball.

My main thing is that I don't want anyone getting a hand broken via hbp.  Bad memories of Bagwell.

The MLB is only second to NASCAR in terms of passively tolerated cheating. There's the "rules," and then there's the "rules rules."

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34 minutes ago, justinjc7 said:

1. Right or wrong, cheating has been engrained into the fabric of the game of baseball for as long as the game has been played.  People have been caught with pine tar, nail files, thumbtacks, corked bats, steroids, hacking into other teams' databases, etc. and yet you think the Astros are the only team that has cheated? You think the Astros are the only team engaging in sign stealing, something that has been part of the game since the beginning?  That line of logic is just unfuckin believable to me.  

No one thinks the Astros are the only people to ever cheat in the history of baseball. Most people are well aware of the other forms of cheating you mentioned.

However, you can't reference past cheaters as if it's some kind of get out of jail free card when your team gets caught cheating. People who are caught for cheating typically face severe consequences for their actions. Players of the 1919 White Sox were banned for life from baseball. Pete Rose is banned for life. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa continue to be left off HOF ballots.

At the very least, cheating typically has the consequence of a lot of people not liking you, which is the situation your Astros are currently in.

And yes, there is an asterisk on the 2017 World Series and there always will be. That's not a few random posters on the internet that think that. That's pretty much everyone outside of Houston. National polls show an overwhelming majority of fans believe the title should be stripped.

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9 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

Players of the 1919 White Sox were banned for life from baseball.

Why do people keep bringing that up as an example of cheating?

They cheated fans out of their money I guess.

Edited by WBT
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No one thinks the Astros are the only people to ever cheat in the history of baseball. Most people are well aware of the other forms of cheating you mentioned.
However, you can't reference past cheaters as if it's some kind of get out of jail free card when your team gets caught cheating. People who are caught for cheating typically face severe consequences for their actions. Players of the 1919 White Sox were banned for life from baseball. Pete Rose is banned for life. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa continue to be left off HOF ballots.
At the very least, cheating typically has the consequence of a lot of people not liking you, which is the situation your Astros are currently in.
And yes, there is an asterisk on the 2017 World Series and there always will be. That's not a few random posters on the internet that think that. That's pretty much everyone outside of Houston. National polls show an overwhelming majority of fans believe the title should be stripped.
I didn't say I think they deserve a free pass. They cheated and they deserve to be punished but it's the talk of stripping the title that is what is so stupid to me. Everyone does it, hell Joe Girardi just about admitted to in on live TV a couple hours ago. The Red Sox and Yankees were both fined for sign stealing in 2017, the year in question. Teams have been sign stealing since the beginning, how you going to strip a title from a team for doing something that everyone else is doing? If your going to start stripping titles for sign stealing, your not gonna have my champions left. What about the steroid era, we just gonna strip all those as well?

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12 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa continue to be left off HOF ballots.

HOF is an organization independent of the MLB. Bonds, Clemens, and Sosa all still have their stats. Bonds still has all of his records. Hell, the Giants retired his number and put him in their Wall of Fame just 11 years after he was indicted for lying under oath about his steroid use. He played 4 more years and broke Hank Aaron's record after admitting to steroids. 

The Astros cheated and were caught. The MLB doesn't have a history of retroactively vacating stats, awards, or titles. Slap the asterisk on it to put it behind everyone and move on. Until the MLB makes it their mission to clean up the sport from top to bottom, it will remain the second dirtiest sport behind NASCAR and the dirtiest sport of the Big 4.

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44 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

And yes, there is an asterisk on the 2017 World Series and there always will be. That's not a few random posters on the internet that think that. That's pretty much everyone outside of Houston. National polls show an overwhelming majority of fans believe the title should be stripped.

I saw two such polls: one said 52% and the other said 58%.  Those are not "overwhelming majorities."

And let's poll those same people and see if they think the Giants should be stripped of their championships in 2010, 2012, and 2014 because Barry Bonds was on enough steroids to kill an elephant.  Then ask them about the 1988 Oakland championship with Mark McGwire.  Or the 1999 and 2000 Yankees' championships with a juiced-up Roger Clemens.  Ohhh, I bet that one'll put a quick stop to all this media talk about asterisks...

You see the problem here?  If you play this game, you're gonna end up with an asterisk on every year from about 1980 to present.  

And I'll say it again, don't be swayed by all of these players coming forward with faux outrage about the integrity of the game.  They just want to get in front of a camera.  And they're full of shit.  Every single one of them knows a cheater in their clubhouse.  Especially the 2017 Dodgers and Giancarlo freaking Stanton.  Get the fuck out of here with your moral compass bullshit when you look like you had a linebacker injected into each bicep.

 

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32 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

I saw two such polls: one said 52% and the other said 58%.  Those are not "overwhelming majorities."

And let's poll those same people and see if they think the Giants should be stripped of their championships in 2010, 2012, and 2014 because Barry Bonds was on enough steroids to kill an elephant.  Then ask them about the 1988 Oakland championship with Mark McGwire.  Or the 1999 and 2000 Yankees' championships with a juiced-up Roger Clemens.  Ohhh, I bet that one'll put a quick stop to all this media talk about asterisks...

You see the problem here?  If you play this game, you're gonna end up with an asterisk on every year from about 1980 to present.  

And I'll say it again, don't be swayed by all of these players coming forward with faux outrage about the integrity of the game.  They just want to get in front of a camera.  And they're full of shit.  Every single one of them knows a cheater in their clubhouse.  Especially the 2017 Dodgers and Giancarlo freaking Stanton.  Get the fuck out of here with your moral compass bullshit when you look like you had a linebacker injected into each bicep.

 

I don’t disagree with your overall point, but the examples supporting your argument are severely undercut by the fact that Bonds retired in ‘07.  

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3 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

I don’t disagree with your overall point, but the examples supporting your argument are severely undercut by the fact that Bonds retired in ‘07.  

Well, I didn't quit drinking until 2013, so there's the problem.  Christ, I thought Barry was still around for those titles.

Okay, swap Barry out for Melky Cabrera, who was definitely on the Giants in their 2012 championship season and was definitely suspended 50 games that same year for PEDs.

See, that's the point.  Give me five minutes and the internet and I can probably find a cheater on every champion in the last 40 years.  

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Here's a thought exercise for all these pearl clutching baseball reporters making this out to be the Worst Scandal in Sports Ever.....If the Astros had thumped the Twins, Indians, and Reds to win a World Series and cheated along the way, would the same breathless denunciations and demands be made ? Or is it obviously not about the media markets of the teams that lost?

This is all such a ginned up load of bullshit. Cheating and sign stealing has always been a part of major league baseball and has always been accepted as the norm... until January 2020. Now suddenly it's on par with the Chinese Olympic team level of cheating. The Astros were banging on a goddamn trash can. As stupid as that is, that stupidity illustrates the overall "cheating as culture" in baseball. If teams weren't widely engaged in sign stealing and it wasn't understood as an acceptable and tolerated practice, there's no chance that a team would be so brazen with its implementation.





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Just want to say I wish I could rep TexArcher and Eastwood's posts on the last page a million times. I fucking can't stand going through Facebook, Twitter or read anything to do with sports with this fucking sign stealing overreaction nonsense. I can't believe people are droning on and on about it. It's because we are not Boston, NY or LA. The media never once said the Patriots should be stripped of their championships. Fuck the haters. Win the God damned ring we should have gotten in 2019.

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17 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

 

Adam Clanton's tweets have been the balm I have needed when glancing at Twitter for the few minutes I can tolerate doing so these past few weeks. Fuck the sports media. Fuck the Athletic. Fuck Mike Fiers and Evan Drellich. Drellich had a stick up his ass because of the inferiority he felt when trying to ingratiate himself with Luhnow and the team he assembled. Guys that are smarter than he will ever be with Ivy League pedigrees and not some moron, wannabe journalist but couldn't hack it sports writer. Crane should never have given into the media who are the enemies of Astros fans and given up Luhnow. 

Edited by Iconoclast Texan
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7 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

Just want to say I wish I could rep TexArcher and Eastwood's posts on the last page a million times. I fucking can't stand going through Facebook, Twitter or read anything to do with sports with this fucking sign stealing overreaction nonsense. I can't believe people are droning on and on about it. It's because we are not Boston, NY or LA. The media never once said the Patriots should be stripped of their championships. Fuck the haters. Win the God damned ring we should have gotten in 2019.

I think a lot of the anger is that they know there is nothing they can do about it. It's a feeling of impotence shared by fans and players.

 

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48 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

Here's a thought exercise for all these pearl clutching baseball reporters making this out to be the Worst Scandal in Sports Ever.....If the Astros had thumped the Twins, Indians, and Reds to win a World Series and cheated along the way, would the same breathless denunciations and demands be made ? Or is it obviously not about the media markets of the teams that lost?

Yes, and the rage is not about the media markets of the teams that lost.  The Astros' biggest problem is the guys who are/were running the team.  It was already pretty obvious that Luhnow was a piece of shit, but the response of the franchise to the Taubman incident is what has fueled this.  Notice I didn't say "the Taubman incident" -- it was the response to it, where the Astros org recklessly accused a reporter of fabricating the incident.  There's literally nothing you can do worse to a member of the media than that, so it's real shocker that the media is now ganging up on the Astros, huh?

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2 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Yes, and the rage is not about the media markets of the teams that lost.  The Astros' biggest problem is the guys who are/were running the team.  It was already pretty obvious that Luhnow was a piece of shit, but the response of the franchise to the Taubman incident is what has fueled this.  Notice I didn't say "the Taubman incident" -- it was the response to it, where the Astros org recklessly accused a reporter of fabricating the incident.  There's literally nothing you can do worse to a member of the media than that, so it's real shocker that the media is now ganging up on the Astros, huh?

The irony is that the Astros are going to make money off of this. So are opposing teams that sell more tickets when the bad guys come to town.

Edited by David Dennison
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27 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

Drellich had a stick up his ass because of the inferiority he felt when trying to ingratiate himself with Luhnow and the team he assembled.

Let's be clear -- Drellich had a stick up his ass because Crane went to the editors of the Chron and tried to get him fired for writing an article about his past business dealings.  Again, dumbass billionaire owner doesn't understand that picking fights with the media is a terrible idea.

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9 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

The irony is that the Astros are going to make money off of this. So are opposing teams that sell more tickets when the bad guys come to town.

I'm sure that improves your life to know that Crane is getting richer while you're cranking out 20 frantic posts an hour on the internet trying to defend his franchise's cheating.

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4 hours ago, Alvin89 said:

I mean this is hilarious, because Giradi was 1st asked about what he did, and he laughed and pointed at the guy, like haha, you ain't tricking me. Then he fucking admitted it.

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42 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Let's be clear -- Drellich had a stick up his ass because Crane went to the editors of the Chron and tried to get him fired for writing an article about his past business dealings.  Again, dumbass billionaire owner doesn't understand that picking fights with the media is a terrible idea.

something something ink by the barrel?

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7 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

I mean this is hilarious, because Giradi was 1st asked about what he did, and he laughed and pointed at the guy, like haha, you ain't tricking me. Then he fucking admitted it.

And yet a very different Girardi quote was just aired on SportsCenter, one where he complained about guys having lost their jobs because of what the Astros did and how if they weren't punished, it wouldn't stop.

Isn't that interesting?

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And let's poll those same people and see if they think the Giants should be stripped of their championships in 2010, 2012, and 2014 because Barry Bonds was on enough steroids to kill an elephant.  Then ask them about the 1988 Oakland championship with Mark McGwire.  Or the 1999 and 2000 Yankees' championships with a juiced-up Roger Clemens.  Ohhh, I bet that one'll put a quick stop to all this media talk about asterisks...


Have you forgotten how the media turned on Barry Bonds and 756* is now his unofficial legacy? Fans were outraged and many people still refuse to acknowledge him as the HR king?

People also turned on McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, Palmeiro, A-Rod, Giambi, Braun, etc.

You guys that keep bringing up the steroid era are acting like all of those players got a free pass for steroid use. They didn’t. Their legacies are forever tainted for cheating.

Asterisks are assigned to sports cheaters by media and fans and the Astros are no different than the long line of cheaters that came before them.

It doesn’t help that the Astros’ owner, players, and fans show a complete lack of remorse for their actions. The response has been to deflect, say it didn’t help, claim everyone else was doing it, and claim baseball has a culture of cheating that people need to embrace. That’s a guaranteed way to become public enemy number one, ask Lance Armstrong.
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8 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

 


Have you forgotten how the media turned on Barry Bonds and 756* is now his unofficial legacy? Fans were outraged and many people still refuse to acknowledge him as the HR king?

People also turned on McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, Palmeiro, A-Rod, Giambi, Braun, etc.

You guys that keep bringing up the steroid era are acting like all of those players got a free pass for steroid use. They didn’t. Their legacies are forever tainted for cheating.

Asterisks are assigned to sports cheaters by media and fans and the Astros are no different than the long line of cheaters that came before them.

It doesn’t help that the Astros’ owner, players, and fans show a complete lack of remorse for their actions. The response has been to deflect, say it didn’t help, claim everyone else was doing it, and claim baseball has a culture of cheating that people need to embrace. That’s a guaranteed way to become public enemy number one, ask Lance Armstrong.

 

Rings a little hollow when two teams the Astros beat were busted for cheating in the same way during the same season. And according to Joe G it didn’t stop with the Apple watches. 

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Have you forgotten how the media turned on Barry Bonds and 756* is now his unofficial legacy? Fans were outraged and many people still refuse to acknowledge him as the HR king?

People also turned on McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, Palmeiro, A-Rod, Giambi, Braun, etc.

You guys that keep bringing up the steroid era are acting like all of those players got a free pass for steroid use. They didn’t. Their legacies are forever tainted for cheating.

Asterisks are assigned to sports cheaters by media and fans and the Astros are no different than the long line of cheaters that came before them.

It doesn’t help that the Astros’ owner, players, and fans show a complete lack of remorse for their actions. The response has been to deflect, say it didn’t help, claim everyone else was doing it, and claim baseball has a culture of cheating that people need to embrace. That’s a guaranteed way to become public enemy number one, ask Lance Armstrong.

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39 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

 


Have you forgotten how the media turned on Barry Bonds and 756* is now his unofficial legacy? Fans were outraged and many people still refuse to acknowledge him as the HR king?

People also turned on McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, Palmeiro, A-Rod, Giambi, Braun, etc.

You guys that keep bringing up the steroid era are acting like all of those players got a free pass for steroid use. They didn’t. Their legacies are forever tainted for cheating.

Asterisks are assigned to sports cheaters by media and fans and the Astros are no different than the long line of cheaters that came before them.

It doesn’t help that the Astros’ owner, players, and fans show a complete lack of remorse for their actions. The response has been to deflect, say it didn’t help, claim everyone else was doing it, and claim baseball has a culture of cheating that people need to embrace. That’s a guaranteed way to become public enemy number one, ask Lance Armstrong.

 

the fans?

LOL ok

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55 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

 


Have you forgotten how the media turned on Barry Bonds and 756* is now his unofficial legacy? Fans were outraged and many people still refuse to acknowledge him as the HR king?

People also turned on McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, Palmeiro, A-Rod, Giambi, Braun, etc.

You guys that keep bringing up the steroid era are acting like all of those players got a free pass for steroid use. They didn’t. Their legacies are forever tainted for cheating.

Asterisks are assigned to sports cheaters by media and fans and the Astros are no different than the long line of cheaters that came before them.

It doesn’t help that the Astros’ owner, players, and fans show a complete lack of remorse for their actions. The response has been to deflect, say it didn’t help, claim everyone else was doing it, and claim baseball has a culture of cheating that people need to embrace. That’s a guaranteed way to become public enemy number one, ask Lance Armstrong.

 

Was Barry removed from the record book?  No.

Were his MVPs revoked?  No.

Look, if you want to keep these Astros out of the Hall of Fame for the same reason that Barry Bonds and Pete Rose aren't in the Hall of Fame, then fine.  But Pete Rose won three World Series and an MVP and they all still count.  And Barry Bonds won 7 MVPs and they all still count.

And the Astros' 2017 World Series still counts.  Whether y'all like it or not.

People who want to see the commish strip that title or put any sort of official asterisk on it are about three levels beyond stupid.

Edited by TexArcher
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30 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

It’s probably safe to say every single team in baseball “stole” signs last season with the intention of relating them during live play regardless of mechanism. 
 

EVERY SINGLE TEAM

You really think the Marlins, Orioles, and Tigers stole signs?

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6 hours ago, wild_turkey said:

No one thinks the Astros are the only people to ever cheat in the history of baseball. Most people are well aware of the other forms of cheating you mentioned.

However, you can't reference past cheaters as if it's some kind of get out of jail free card when your team gets caught cheating. People who are caught for cheating typically face severe consequences for their actions. Players of the 1919 White Sox were banned for life from baseball. Pete Rose is banned for life. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa continue to be left off HOF ballots.

At the very least, cheating typically has the consequence of a lot of people not liking you, which is the situation your Astros are currently in.

And yes, there is an asterisk on the 2017 World Series and there always will be. That's not a few random posters on the internet that think that. That's pretty much everyone outside of Houston. National polls show an overwhelming majority of fans believe the title should be stripped.

Fuck polls and fuck you.

There is no asterisk.

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8 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

You really think the Marlins, Orioles, and Tigers stole signs?

You really think they weren’t trying to all season?  At the very least with a runner on second?  It’s baseball, it’s happened in every season for the last hundred years. The technology changed, but the cheat did not. They may not have used an Apple Watch or a trash can but every team in the game is trying to steal signs real time in every game. The difference is the method/implementation/success. But the end game is all the same. 

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2 minutes ago, huge said:


Like it or not there will always be one in the court of public opinion. It’s the age we live in. How you choose to feel about that is up to you.

sure it is up to me.

There is no fucking asterisk. Imagined or not.

 

Moving along...

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