HANK AARON GOES FOR THE ASTROS THROAT!

The Godfather of Baseball, Hank Aaron has spoken. Time for MLB and the Player's union to react swiftly.  You want to know why? Because when a guy like Hank Aaron speaks about the integrity of the game... you do what he says.

This is a guy that played the game clean his entire career... even through racial hatred, even in the dark, dark days of living in Babe Ruth's shadow. And you know what? He did it with talent and pride... and not stealing signs using technology and faking it. Hank Aaron has honor. Rob Manfred and Tony Clark better sit at a table this weekend and fix this mess once and for all.

The Washington Post writes:

"A report released last month by MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred detailed the Astros’ scheme, which continued into the 2018 season and involved using a center field camera to detect opposing catchers’ signs and tip off Houston batters to upcoming pitches. 

For everyone specifically named in the report, the fallout was severe: then-Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and then-manager A.J. Hinch were each suspended for a year and then quickly fired; Red Sox manager Alex Cora, a Houston bench coach in 2017, lost his job in Boston; and the same fate eventually befell Mets manager Carlos Beltran, who spent his final season as a player with the 2017 Astros. 

However, no other players on that team were named, and Manfred said in his report that he was not inclined to hand down punishments to anyone else. 

Asked on NBC’s “Today” show if “the punishment fit the crime,” the 86-year-old Aaron replied. “No, I don’t. “I think whoever did that,” Aaron continued, “should be out of baseball for the rest of their lives.”...

When Aaron told NBC Thursday that he was “surprised” to learn the details of the Astros’ operation, he was asked, “They didn’t steal signs back in your day?” 

“They did. They didn’t steal them that way,” Aaron replied with a chuckle.

And that's the point. Playing baseball clean, seeing the way a pitcher tips pitches and then reporting back to your teammates to "look for this" or "look for that"... that's just baseball. That's trying to get the edge in the realm of the game itself.

When you start taking out baseball bats and banging trash cans because you have a live feed in the clubhouse and you move a camera in center field like Reid Ryan of the Astros did... that's cheating and there needs to be harsh, HARSH punishments for that. The Astros are liars and cheaters and are to never be trusted again. Bottom line.

Aaron's right. I hope Manfred and Clark are listening.

HEY CORA! YOU'RE DESPERATE, DUMB-ASS!

When you're caged like a rat, you try and gnaw your way through the trap.  Thankfully, Cora's not going anywhere but down and out. He's a dunce.

I cannot believe this latest report. SNY had this:

"Following the Red Sox' beatdown by the Yankees in the inaugural London Series last year, Cora can be heard talking about then-Yankees special advisor Carlos Beltran, and he did so in an interesting way. Listen to his opening answer...



"I was joking with somebody that their biggest free agent acquisition was Carlos Beltran," Cora said with a wink. "I know how he works. He's helping a lot. They're paying attention to details and we have to clean our details."

Cora also mentions in the video that whatever he's alleging doesn't involve "devices," which is the telling remark. The scandal with the Astros and Red Sox deals with using a camera in center field to relay opponents' signs to a video replay room near the dugout. Beltran is mentioned in the report from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred following his discipline of former manager A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow. "

Hmm. No devices? No video replay near the dugout?

3 Devices in the Astros tunnel here.

Oh... here's another device. You know, the one to send the signal of what pitch is coming to the batter. And let's not forget what happened when Astros president of business operations Reid Ryan moved the camera angle in the Astros park.

This year vs last year pic.twitter.com/Kb6v9mcG0V

— Hill (@Hill713) March 31, 2017

He claimed it was to get a better angle of advertising... but this is clearly bullshit and too much of a coincidence.

Yup, I believe Reid Ryan needs to be fired as well.  Anyway, the point to all of this is, with that angle, it's clear what the Astros and Alex Cora was doing.

So what's my point?

My point is this was all premeditated. Alex Cora knew what was going to happen and that's why it was planned out like it was. And yes,  Carlos Beltran knew exactly what he was doing too. They both knew how they were going to handle this sign-stealing operation and while Cora can try and suggest Beltran was the main guy in all of this, the reality is it's 2-fold.

One, both should be removed from baseball. And 2... only one coach and manager won a championship 2 years in a row. Alex Cora... once as a bench coach with the Astros in 2017 and once as a manager with the Red Sox in 2018.  And right now? Right now this tool is out of a job because he's literally a criminal.

Once Manfred's punishment comes down officially on Cora, I hope the guy is gone from baseball for a long, long time...literally banned. And dare I suggest that Carlos Beltran should go with him.

Mark Teixeira is all fired up about this and had this to say about Beltran. The New York Post writes:

"Mark Teixeira, who played with Beltran in the Bronx for three years, says the Mets need to dump Beltran just as the Red Sox canned Alex Cora and the Astros pink-slipped A.J. Hinch. 

'I don’t think the Mets have a choice, either. They have to fire Carlos Beltran,' Teixeira said on ESPN’s “Get Up!” on Wednesday. 'The only reason Beltran wasn’t punished as a bigger part of this was because of that immunity … it’s really a loophole for Carlos Beltran because he retired immediately after that World Series.'"

Teixeira is 100% correct. While Cora is 100% guilty, Beltran, much like Hinch needs to go.  If the Mets were smart, they would do what the Astros and Red Sox did as to clean up this game for the better.

The Mets and the Manfred investigation can claim that Beltran is cleared... but if you read everything about this story top to bottom, Beltran is right there with these morons.  And if you want to do the right thing, Manfred needs to remove Beltran too.

Bottom line? Desperation happens when cheaters get caught.  But punishment should also happen when it comes to bad dudes.  Cora? You're desperate right now... and running.

Beltran? You need to say bye[bye to your new gig.  You hang with the wrong dudes.

DIRTY DENIALS FROM LOSER ASTROS DON'T ADD UP

Now we have 'sources' from the Astros camp that are coming clean saying while sign stealing was a thing, using electronics was not.

Bullshit. They're caught!

SNY writes:

"They did not install a new camera for sign-stealing purposes, and the players and coaches involved did not even know which camera the feed was coming from. They wanted a monitor closer to the dugout, because their video room was too far away. They considered their actions to be in line with industry standards.

The above narrative represents the picture painted by some of the interviews conducted by MLB investigators this fall, according to sources with direct knowledge of the investigation. The league has already spoken with nearly 60 people, and SNY can now report some of what they have learned.

The overall picture painted by these sources is one that shows the Astros breaking rules, but not going so far as to install a camera specifically for sign stealing.

'We did ask for a game centerfield feed to decode signs, as many teams do,' one witness told MLB, according to sources. 'All we asked for was a live feed.' Baseball considers that illegal, and will punish accordingly.

Harsh discipline for Astros GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch remain in play."

Luhnow is the biggest loser of them all. He just needs to be fire and fined and punched in the face with those stupid glasses just clipped right in half. Dummy.

But look... it's all bologna. It's a lie too. Remember when I wrote THE CRASH & BURN OF A PATHETIC ASTROS FRANCHISE on November 18th?

That's when we found out that Reid Ryan, Astros President of Business Operations had the camera in center field moved.

"The moving of the Astros center field camera after the 2016 season. Wow. How obvious are they?

Back then Reid Ryan told MLB this... courtesy of Larry Brown Sports: “'We think the new angle will give viewers a better look at the strike zone and advertisers more balanced signage placement,' Astros president of business operations Reid Ryan said of the move via the Houston Chronicle. 

We wanted a new camera angle that improves the strike zone the fans see on TV as well as the benefit of the advertisers getting more value for their signs,' Ryan told MLB.com.

This year vs last year pic.twitter.com/Kb6v9mcG0V

— Hill (@Hill713) March 31, 2017

'Before, you always had a little bit of brick on the side. It didn’t look centered.'

Now to be honest, for advertisers, the change of angle really doesn't make much of a difference. For the fans, it certainly does, and I guess when he said "fans", he meant Astros front office fans. 

So they could get a better view of the signs to benefit their team."

In other words, he's lying. They're all trying to cover it up. Yes, Reid uses the advertising line but clearly they didn't need to move it for advertising purposes if you look at the view. That's one. And 2, if you look at the angle, they are clearly stealing signs and that feed can be seen anywhere in their clubhouse. As a person with knowledge of TV productions, I know that live feeds can come in to your TV from different channels if the program is produced in house. They are lying with all of this. They are caught!  THESE ASTROS ARE EMBARASSING! FIRE THEM ALL!

There is no running. Bad people get caught. The Astros are no different.

They need to clean house in that front office, fire AJ Hinch, Strip the title from these losers and remove the MVP from Jose Altuve's cold hands...THEY CHEATED.

As my 17 year old says... "F Altuve… F them all!"

I cannot wait for the hammer to fall!

THE CRASH & BURN OF A PATHETIC ASTROS FRANCHISE

They were brazen and they got caught... and now the entire world is falling down around the Houston Astros.  They deserve every ripping, pile-on, fine, punishment they deserve. They are absolutely disgusting.

You can't down play this clip:

Rays @ Astros, Aug. 1, 2017 (🎧)
(This might be one of most egregious uses of the banging for Houston)

Chris Archer vs. Carlos Beltran

0-0 slider: 1 bang
0-1 changeup: 2 bangs
1-1 changeup: 2 bangs
2-1 slider: 1 bang
2-2 fastball: no bang pic.twitter.com/1M3DkZjdeF

— Max Wildstein (@MaxWildstein) November 15, 2019

You just can't.

While sign stealing has always been a thing, sign stealing using new technology... sign stealing being communicated among a Astros brazen front office IN WRITTEN EMAILS, and then executing is just wrong if not worse. They need to be held accountable.  This image is one of the Astros personnel literally trying to clean up as fast as he can after a game is over.  You can't sit here and look at this and say, "Hey, that guy was just playing Fortnite."

Nope, the Astros were strategic and they knew what they were doing... and it's bigger and bigger and bigger and when they kept winning at home and they got too big for their britches... and now, they got caught.  I love it.

But it's not just cheating at this point... it's lying too. This article from USA Today from 2018 has this headline:

MLB clears Astros of cheating, Houston GM Jeff Luhnow says team was 'playing defense'

In that article, this: "Major League Baseball cleared the Houston Astros of any illegal activity Wednesday, but ordered them to stop doing surveillance on teams they suspect of cheating by using electronic equipment to steal signs. 

Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow vehemently denied any wrongdoing in an impromptu news conference, saying the Astros have never used illegal surveillance to steal signs, only to detect whether their opponents were cheating. "

But it turns out the Astros WERE "doing surveillance on teams" and they were "using electronic equipment to steal signs."

So Jeff Lunhow should lose his job and be banned for life just like and anonymous GM told Andy Martino of SNY:

"'If Jeff Luhnow knew about this, he should be banned for life,' the general manager said. Another team executive said he wanted to see the league throw the book at the Astros. 'How naive I was,' the executive told Martino. 'I hope MLB buries the Astros.'”

In fact, the Astros need to be fired... all of the front office.  And no fines for the players folks... this is bigger than a fine.  STRIP THE CHAMPIONSHIP.

They did no earn it.

Remember that guy Pete Rose? Remember when the baseball world not only turned his back on Pete Rose for gambling, but for betting on baseball as a manager for the Reds? The Astros Scandal is just as bad if not worse.  The Astros are frauds.

Look at AJ Hinch? He's openly mocked anyone trying to accuse the Astros of doing wrongdoing. But he's in trouble just like everyone else. AJ HINCH IS THE FACE OF THE FRANCHISE. He is guilty. He too is a cheater.

Remember when @AJHinch said the #Yankees were wrong about their whistling allegations regarding the #Astros?

Let’s revisit this topic now. pic.twitter.com/byPTzi2hVx

— Chris Dixon (@cdixon25) November 17, 2019

He said "There's no evidence of anything." Oh... but there is.

Hinch gets defensive when others come out and say things about the Astros cheating. Listen to his say it.

He said not to be anonymous when they make accusations against their Astros team. In other words, make the accusation like a man. Use your name.  What he forgot was that players leave teams and Mike Fiers did.  And thank god for Mike Fiers… because without him, we wouldn't be talking about this.

I have news for you. AJ Hinch? He needs to be fired.  His coaching staff... they need to be fired.  They too are lying and trying to deceive. Disgusting.

And then of course there's this.  The moving of the Astros center field camera after the 2016 season.  Wow.  How obvious are they?

This year vs last year pic.twitter.com/Kb6v9mcG0V

— Hill (@Hill713) March 31, 2017

Back then Reid Ryan told MLB this... courtesy of Larry Brown Sports:

“'We think the new angle will give viewers a better look at the strike zone and advertisers more balanced signage placement,' Astros president of business operations Reid Ryan said of the move via the Houston Chronicle. 

'We wanted a new camera angle that improves the strike zone the fans see on TV as well as the benefit of the advertisers getting more value for their signs,' Ryan told MLB.com. 'Before, you always had a little bit of brick on the side. It didn’t look centered.'"

Now to be honest, for advertisers, the change of angle really doesn't make much of a difference.  For the fans, it certainly does, and I guess when he said "fans", he meant Astros front office fans.  So they could get a better view of the signs to benefit their team. FIRE THEM ALL.

They really have some dumb folks in that front office.  CLEAN HOUSE... FIRE THEM ALL. They are all cheaters.

Sean Doolittle says it best:

Sign stealing is part of baseball. It’s gamesmanship. A runner picking up signs from 2nd base or looking for how a pitcher might be tipping his pitches based on how he comes set is fair game. If you can do it using your eye balls it’s ok. If you’re using technology it’s cheating.

— Obi-Sean Kenobi Doolittle (@whatwouldDOOdo) November 15, 2019

This tweet needs to be placed into the investigation. It's simple, but it's accurate.  MLB needs to take this into account.

And CBS Sports says it best in their report on the scandal:

"An email from the front office to the scouting staff discussing the use of cameras to steal signs is a damning piece of evidence, and the Rosenthal and Drellich report says the Astros also discussed stealing signs with their scouts over the phone and in an online chat room."

Ladies and Gentlemen... there is proof.

There is no "accusing" and fake news and no made up story here.  The Astros organization is a disgrace.  And to all the Astros fans out there that want to jump down our throats calling us cry babies and liars and stupid.  You should be mad at the Astros. You are their fans and they lied to you too.  They disappointed you.  They messed things up for your fandom.  No one likes cheaters... they cheated... you should demand your money back on a fake team.