Astros are baseball’s new Evil Empire
ARLINGTON, Texas — The Astros’ hiring the nicest man in the history of professional sports to be their manager cannot save them from the reality that everyone outside the city of Houston hates their existence.
Houstonians, no amount of mansplaining, lobbying or begging will convince anyone outside of south Texas that your beloved Astros did anything other than cheat their way to a dynasty.
Now that Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots are NFL chum without Tom Brady, the Houston Astros are The Team That Americans Love to Hate.
No one at Major League Baseball would dare admit this publicly, but the Astros are a gift to their marketing team. The Houston Astros have replaced the New York Yankees as the real Evil Empire.
Without the Astros continually advancing in baseball’s postseason, there is no team in sports right now with the fangs like this team. Nothing moves the needle like the organic unification between strangers to watch the bad guy get his.
Starting tonight in Houston for Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, the Texas Rangers will play the Astros for the Texas State title. Nearly all of America will be Rangers fans, hoping that Houston just doesn’t win another World Series.
Make no mistake, through a series of shrewd moves and personnel decisions, the Astros are currently sports’ most dominant dynasty. Seven consecutive ALCS appearances, four World Series appearances and two titles is a dynasty by the most conservative of definitions.
How they built some, not all, of this dynasty is through cheating. Make no mistake, Astros fans, your favorite team got away with it.
When PBS’s Frontline dedicates a 1 hour, and 24-minute episode to your team, something has gone terribly wrong. (BTW: Frontline’s “The Astros’ Edge,” which aired on Oct. 3, is worth your time).
What the Astros did makes Tom Brady’s “Deflategate” nonsense look like parking illegally in an empty mall lot.
In 2017, ‘18 and ‘19, the Astros used technology, and a garbage can, to help an already loaded roster win a World Series and reach the next two postseasons.
To guarantee honesty from the players, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred agreed before the investigation there would be no punishments for the players. All records and achievements would remain intact.
GM Jeff Luhnow and Manager A.J. Hinch were suspended for a year, the team was fined $5 million and docked their first and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021. Both men were fired by the Astros.
After MLB handed down that punishment, L.A. Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger said, “I think what people don’t realize is (Astros second baseman Jose) Altuve stole an MVP from (Yankees outfielder Aaron) Judge in ‘17.
“Everyone knows they stole the ring from us.”
The Astros defeated the Dodgers to win the 2017 World Series. Current Texas Rangers shortstop Corey Seager was a member of that Dodgers lineup, and had the last at-bat of Game 7, a routine grounder to second.
At least two other clubs were thought to be doing what the Astros did in this time frame, but the hammer never hit any team other than the Astros.
What the Astros did is never going away, especially since so many of the players from those teams are still around.
The Astros were/are a loaded team and built through a long series of savvy, pioneering decisions. It was proven they cheated for a period during what is now a seven-year run.
The first is to be celebrated, while the second will be forever criticized.
“There is always other parts (to the story). Tom Brady and Deflategate,” Luhnow told Ben Reiter during the Frontline interview, during which Luhnow maintains he knew nothing of the cheating scheme. “There is always something. I’m not trying to minimize it. It’s there, and we all face the music. But the Astros are one of the best sports teams of the 21st century. Period.”
Luhnow is a data freak, and the numbers say he is right. He’s also trying to “minimize it.”
The unexpected development to this story is that the Astros have become one of those teams that transcends their sport. You don’t need to know a thing about the Astros to know their reputation.
The beneficiary to this saga is MLB, which fell into a team that everyone knows, and will watch. Nothing sells like a authentic storyline.
Nothing sells quite like a real Evil Empire, and fans will watch just in the hopes to watch Darth Vader lose.