For those of you who don’t keep up to date on baseball and it’s news, you are missing out on the biggest controversy since the steroid-era of the 1990’s and early 2000’s. The Houston Astros (and maybe later Boston Red Sox) used illegal technology to communicate with the batter and steal the opponents signs. Houston started it in the 2017 season, guess who won the World Series that season, the Houston Astros.

News broke after former Astro pitcher Mike Fiers said in an interview that the team used a center-field camera to video tape the catcher and relay it in real time to a person in the dugout who hit a garbage can to relay what the pitch was going to be. A picture from the team’s World Series video showed the set up that they used which just confirmed that they were used illegal technologies. The MLB then started an investigation that confirmed the stories.

Due to the investigation and it’s findings, the MLB punished the team hard. They were fined $5 million dollars, their first and second round draft picks in 2020 and 2021 drafts were taken away. The teams General Manager Jeff Luhnow and Manager AJ Hinch were both suspended by the MLB for the 2020 season, and the team promptly fired both. The Boston Red Sox also ended up firing their manager Alex Cora. He was the Astro’s bench coach during the 2017 season, and there are rumors that he used the same cheating tactics to win the 2018 World Series with the Red Sox. The New York Met’s fired their manager mere months after signing him. Carlos Beltran, the manager in question, was a player for the Astros during the 2017 seasons and is reportedly one of the ring leaders of the controversy.

There are new theories going around that during the 2019 season, a season in which they made the World Series, the team used a electronic buzzer-type thing that was wore by players to give them the sign via vibrations. This report was suggested due to Jose Altuve appearing to tell his teammates to not rip his jersey off after hitting a walk off home run against the New York Yankees in game six of the American League Championship Series to advance to the World Series. Altuve claimed that he did this because he was shy and his wife would have gotten mad at him. Before any interviews after the game he went to the locker room and changed his shirt, only fueling the online rumors. At this time the MLB has not found any evidence supporting these claims and for right now and still just rumors.

The MLB has never seen such a wide-spread controversy involving whole teams rather than just individuals in it’s history. Day after day more allegations and rumors are spread and it could be a while before it all dies down. Many question if this will affect the ability of certain players to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame much like steroid allegations have for people like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. Players like Carlos Beltran and Jose Altuve might be left off voters ballots’ due to this cheating and could get in the way of them being forever enshrined in the Hall. There is also much public backlash. Many people have stated that they want more individual players to receive punishment rather than just Beltran, who is retired. Many also want the 2017 (and in some cases 2018) World Series titles be stripped from their owners and given to the runner-up, who in both cases was the Los Angeles Dodgers. The city of Los Angeles has even started a petition for this however, the MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has said that the MLB will not be taking the titles away. No matter what happens, this team that could have become a dynasty, will no have shrouded history. This era of Astro’s baseball will forever be tarnished and never seen the same way again.