Say What Again?

You know how public outrage sometimes forces people to take down stupid tweets and Facebook posts?  MLB.com might want to take down the stories and videos relating to today’s Astros’ news conference, where players and other members of the team addressed the cheating scandal of 2017-18.

Here’s Jose Altuve, responding to the question if he knew what the team was doing was wrong:  “Yeah, kind of.”  Wrong answer, Jose.  Good thing you kept talking and admitted, “I’m not gonna say to you it was good.  It was wrong.  We feel bad.  We feel remorse.”  And I worry about apologies cloaked in the third person singular (“it”) and passive voice (“It was bad.”).  What was bad, exactly?  Something along the lines of “we cheated” would’ve worked better.

Not to pick on Altuve.  Sean Bregman also hid behind the passive voice in saying, “I’m really sorry about the choices that were made by my team, by the organization and by me.”  Sean, do you ever say, “Look at the ball that was hit by me”?  I doubt it.  Then own up to your actions and say, “I regret the choices I made.”  Bregman says he’s learned from this, but you have to wonder what.

And then we have George Springer saying, “I regret the fact we are in this today.”  In what?  Oh, the aftermath of the cheating scandal you and your teammates perpetrated.  That’s what you should be regretting, George.  Springer’s remorse compares to Carlos Correa’s, which didn’t get in the way of Correa calling allegations of Astros’ hitters wearing buzzers “a lie” and “straight-up false.”  If that’s the case, Carlos, detail for the public exactly what you and your teammates did and didn’t do while cheating.  I’m curious.

The only adult on the 25-player roster appears to be pitcher Justin Verlander, who didn’t even join the team until the 2017 trade deadline at the end of August.  Verlander told reporters.  “I wish I had said more, and I didn’t, and for that I’m sorry.”  Now, there’s how you own up to wrongdoing, that and by saying as Verlander did, “We crossed a boundary, we broke the rules, and we’re sorry.”

Very active, very direct, very personal.  Verlander I won’t boo when his team comes to visit 35^th and Shields this season.