REALITY CHECK
Here are the real consequences of irrational Astros hate
Jun 15, 2021, 6:34 pm
Fans are still fuming in New York. Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images.
It started in Yankee Stadium last month, but now baseball fans around the league – plus even one NBA arena, Madison Square Garden – are chanting their deep, dark, years-in-the-making anger at the Houston Astros in general and Jose Altuve in particular.
"Cheater!"
"F-Altuve!"
Fans still are fuming over the Astros' World Series-winning cheating scandal from 2017. And beyond if you believe "Cheated," baseball writer Andy Martino's new book that accuses the Astros of continuing to illegally steal signs during the 2019 season when they won the American League pennant.
Curiously, "Cheated" claims that Altuve is the one remaining Astros hitter who did not welcome the well-documented trash can banging when a breaking ball or changeup was coming. Several Astros told MLB investigators that Altuve "didn't want the pitches." The investigation concluded that Altuve "generally" didn't benefit from the sign-stealing scheme.
Altuve was and still is the face of the franchise so he's bearing the brunt of fans' hatred when the Astros hit the road. Is it fair, and what will be the long-term legacy of the Astros scandal spell for Altuve?
Most important, will this impact Altuve's chances of induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Or will those "cheater" chants be forgiven and forgotten by five years after Altuve retires and is eligible for the Hall?
Altuve certainly is on track to warrant induction to the Hall of Fame. His lifetime batting average is .310 and he's well past halfway to 3,000 hits, the traditional golden ticket to Cooperstown. He's won three batting titles and one MVP. He's only 31 years old so there's plenty of tread left on his career. Also, he's a good story – one of the shortest players in the league, who once was sent home from a tryout camp because he wasn't big enough or good enough. He became Sports Illustrated's 2017 "Sportsperson of the Year" for his baseball accomplishments and charity work. He used to be lovable everywhere, now just in Houston.
Then there's reality. Let's accept that Altuve didn't want to know what pitches were coming his way and told the Astros to stop banging the trash can when he was batting. Does that give him a "get out of jail card"?
Fans elsewhere are skeptical. While Altuve may not have known when a curveball was coming, the Astro runners standing on second and third base did. Cheating probably boosted Altuve's RBI total. Also other Astros hitters may have chased the opposing team's starting pitcher early, so Altuve got to bat against lesser middle relievers. With runners on base, pitchers may have been forced to face Altuve from the stretch instead of a full windup. These are advantages possibly gained as a result of sign stealing.
We don't know if Altuve tried to get his teammates to stop cheating. If he did, he wasn't successful. That puts him in the same boat as Astros 2017 manager A.J. Hinch.
Like Altuve, Hinch was well liked and respected by Astros players. Like Altuve, Hinch did not approve of the sign-stealing scheme. Unlike Altuve, Hinch was suspended from baseball and fired by the Astros. Fans, especially in New York, believe that an unpunished Altuve stole the MVP award from Yankees home run champ Aaron Judge in 2017.
At best, Altuve is an innocent bystander. As for the stench of scandal lingering on Altuve, barring career-ending injury, for the next 12-15 years when he's eligible for the Hall of Fame? That's a tough one. Induction into the Hall is voted on by baseball writers, historically an older, uptight, stodgy lot who don't cotton to cheaters.
Eight Chicago White Sox players were accused of accepting bribes to throw the 1919 World Series. A jury later acquitted the players, after they played the entire 1920 season. That's when baseball commissioner Kenesaw Landis stepped in and banned the "Black Sox" for life. None of the "Eight Men Out," not even Shoeless Joe Jackson and his .356 lifetime batting average (third all time), who batted .375 in the 1919 World Series, made the Hall of Fame. Jackson batted .382 in 1920, his final season. Actually, Jackson was on the Hall of Fame ballot in 1936 and 1946 but failed to gain 5 percent of the vote. Baseball writers can hold a grudge.
Pete Rose is baseball's all-time hit king and played more games than anybody ever. He is not in the Hall of Fame. Neither is Barry Bonds, baseball's all-time home run champ. Nor Roger Clemens, who won seven Cy Young Awards.
Nobody who flunked a steroids test has been voted into the Hall of Fame.
Baseball is trying to recruit younger, possibly more open-minded writers to decide the fate of Hall of Fame candidates. We'll see if fans' protests of "Cheater" still echo in the Hall when it's Altuve's time for consideration.
They’ll be watching in Canada, not just because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, though the NBA’s scoring champion and MVP favorite who plays for Oklahoma City surely helps lure in fans who are north of the border.
They’ll be watching from Serbia and Greece, the homelands of Denver star Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will have them watching Houston games in the middle of the night in Turkey, too. Slovenian fans will be watching Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their playoff opener at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Los Angeles. Fans in Cameroon will be tuned in to see Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. Defending champion Boston features, among others, Kristaps Porzingis of Latvia and Al Horford of the Dominican Republic.
Once again, the NBA playoffs are setting up to be a showcase for international stars.
In a season where the five statistical champions were from five different countries, an NBA first — Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis of Sacramento is from Lithuania, blocked shots champion Victor Wembanyama of San Antonio is from France, steals champion Dyson Daniels of Atlanta is from Australia, and assists champion Trae Young of the Hawks is from the U.S. — the postseason will have plenty of international feel as well. Gilgeous-Alexander is in, while Sabonis and Daniels (along with Young, obviously) could join him if their teams get through the play-in tournament.
“We have a tremendous number of international players in this league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. “It’s roughly 30% of our players representing, at least on opening day, 43 different countries, so there’s much more of a global sense around our teams.”
By the end of the season, it wound up being 44 different countries — at least in terms of countries where players who scored in the NBA this season were born. For the first time in NBA history, players from one country other than the U.S. combined to score more than 15,000 points; Canadian players scored 15,588 this season, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, the first scoring champion from that country.
Gilgeous-Alexander is favored to be MVP this season. It'll be either him or Jokic, which means it'll be a seventh consecutive year with an international MVP for the NBA. Antetokounmpo won twice, then Jokic won three of the next four, with Cameroon-born Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers winning two seasons ago.
“Shai is in the category of you do not stop him,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season.
In other words, he's like a lot of other international guys now. Nobody truly stops Jokic, Antetokounmpo and Doncic either.
And this season brought another international first: Doncic finished atop the NBA's most popular jersey list, meaning NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than they did anyone else's. Sure, that was bolstered by Doncic changing jerseys midseason when he was traded by Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it still is significant.
The Slovenian star is the first international player to finish atop the most popular jerseys list — and the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to hold that spot in more than a decade, since soon-to-be-enshrined Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony did it when he was with New York in 2012-13.
“We’re so small, we have 2 million people. But really, our sport is amazing,” fellow Slovene Ajsa Sivka said when she was drafted by the WNBA's Chicago Sky on Monday night and asked about Doncic and other top Slovenian athletes. “No matter what sport, we have at least someone that’s great in it. I’m just really proud to be Slovenian.”
All this comes at a time where the NBA is more serious than perhaps ever before about growing its international footprint. Last month, FIBA — the sport's international governing body — and the NBA announced a plan to partner on a new European basketball league that has been taking shape for many years. The initial target calls for a 16-team league and it potentially could involve many of the biggest franchise names in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
It was a season where four players topped 2,000 points in the NBA and three of them were international with Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo. Globally, time spent watching NBA League Pass was up 6% over last season. More people watched NBA games in France this season than ever before, even with Wembanyama missing the final two months. NBA-related social media views in Canada this season set records, and league metrics show more fans than ever were watching in the Asia-Pacific region — already a basketball hotbed — as well.
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers — which are clearly being fueled by the continued international growth — suggest the game is very strong right now.
“Looking around the world, and of course here in North America," Zagklis said, "the NBA is most popular and more commercially successful than ever.”