Many fans and players still are worked up about the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal in 2017 and 2018, especially because the team won the World Series at the height of the scheme.
White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito has a tougher time with that line of thinking. And he doesn’t believe the Astros must win the World Series against the Phillies to legitimize their previous title run.
On the “Chris Rose Rotation” show of Jomboy Media, Giolito said he believes every team in the 2017 postseason was cheating — but the Astros were the only ones who got caught.
“Based on everything I’ve heard, it was like all the teams that were in the postseason that year were doing the same [expletive],” Giolito told Rose. “I think that’s also kind of why the players kind of had that half-apology energy when they were apologizing for all this stuff, because they probably knew, like, ‘Man, we got caught, but everyone was kind of doing this stuff.’ ”
That postseason featured the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs, Guardians, Diamondbacks and Rockies. The Astros defeated the Yankees in the American League Championship Series before taking down the Dodgers in seven games to win the World Series.
This isn’t an entirely new line of thinking from Giolito. In 2017, the Yankees and Red Sox accused each other of using technology to decode and transmit signs. The Brewers accused the Dodgers of doing the same during the 2018 National League Championship Series, and former Astros bench coach and Red Sox manager Alex Cora is implicated in commissioner Rob Manfred’s final report on the matter.
Again, the Astros rightfully have grabbed the majority of the headlines for their use of sign-stealing technology, but it certainly seems as though players around the sport have a bit more trouble determining who the real villains are here.
Whether a title in 2022 would legitimize the Astros’ dominance over the last decade almost seems moot, especially when many of the current team’s most exciting players weren’t even around in 2017.
Does that make any of this easier for fans to process? Probably not. But since when have baseball controversies been simple?
