The Houston Astros are suddenly sorry for cheating their way to a World Series title in 2017.
Astros owner Jim Crane said last month that he would get his players together at the start of spring training to apologize “with a strong statement as a team,” and apparently what happened on Thursday was his idea of that. As part of a cringeworthy scripted press conference, Astros stars Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve issued very brief statements expressing remorse for their roles in the 2017 sign-stealing scandal. They took no questions.
Alex Bregman pide excusas pic.twitter.com/R02wWD6iYm
— Enrique Rojas/ESPN (@Enrique_Rojas1) February 13, 2020
“I am really sorry about the choices that were made by my team, by the organization and by me,” Bregman said. “I’ve learned from this and I hope to regain the trust of baseball fans.”
Altuve said the whole Astros organization “feels bad about what happened in 2017.”
Statement from José Altuve pic.twitter.com/okYgqzzbWH
— Marly Rivera (@MarlyRiveraESPN) February 13, 2020
As if the insincere apologies weren’t enough, Crane then addressed the media and said the team believes their World Series title was not a product of the elaborate sign-stealing scheme.
And yeah, maybe this is why the punishment was a little to weak. Whats to stop any other team pic.twitter.com/v5XDI37rQa
— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) February 13, 2020
“Our opinion is that this didn’t impact the game,” Crane said. “We had a good team. We won the World Series and we’ll leave it at that.”
Crane also addressed the allegations that the Astros used electronic buzzers as part of their cheating. Like former manager AJ Hinch the day before, Crane said he does not believe that ever happened.
#Astros owner Jim Crane on buzzers: "The commissioner addressed that in the report. I'm confident it's accurate. I discussed it with the players. … I truly believe there were no buzzers. I don't even know where that came from."
— Scott Boeck (@ScottBoeck) February 13, 2020
The owner also said he does not feel he should be held accountable for the cheating scandal because “clearly the report states that I didn’t know about it.”
The Astros probably would have been better off not addressing the scandal and just moving on to 2020. Bregman already made his thoughts about the cheating clear with his comments last month, and they sounded nothing like the phony statement he gave on Thursday. Houston’s PR department successfully managed to make an ugly situation worse.
The Houston Astros are confirmed cheaters and deserve an asterisk. Send that message by wearing our Houston Asterisks T-shirt! You can buy it here:
