Carlos Beltrán is about to step into the Hall of Fame this weekend, but the 2017 Houston Astros’ illegal sign-stealing scheme is a hot topic again, and Beltrán is NOT holding back. He just spoke out on a Hall of Fame Zoom call Monday, clarifying he was absolutely not the only player responsible for that system. The guy’s clearly got a bad taste in his mouth about the whole thing, especially since the Major League Baseball report from January 2020 mentioned him as the *only* player.
The “Team Being Together, From Top to Bottom” Claim
Beltrán, who was a veteran leader on that 2017 team that beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games for the franchise’s first title, went deep on what actually went down. He made it clear this wasn’t some lone wolf operation. He said he was among a group of players that met around June of the 2017 season to figure out how to improve their sign-stealing. Remember, sign-stealing itself was legal, but only if you didn’t use electronics or live video to decipher and communicate signs. What was their solution in that meeting? The now infamous trash-can banging system, where they watched a live video of signals and then banged on a trash can to alert the hitter when a breaking ball was coming.
Beltrán put it bluntly: “I know I was part of that organization, I know I was part of that. I know that as a team we got together to do what we did, but I’ve got to tell you that this was not like one player’s idea. This was a team being together, from top to bottom, to do something that we felt was going to help us win.” He even threw shade, saying they felt “other organizations, they had their system” and that their system “was better than any other system in baseball.” Intense, right?
Red Flags and a Broken Promise
So why was Beltrán the only player named in the MLB report when he says it was a whole team effort? He intimated that it came down to him already being retired and no longer represented by the MLB Players Association. Beltrán felt like the process and investigation had “red flags.” He simply finds it hard to believe he was the only player mentioned when the MLB interviews promised a clean slate.
He dropped this bombshell: “When I went to the interview with MLB, the first thing that they told all the players was, ‘You know what, guys? We just want to know what happened. We want to know everything that happened with the Astros. We are going to give all the players immunity. So we’re not going to suspend anybody, we’re not going to mention anybody.’” That’s a direct quote from him! The fact that he was the only one mentioned feels “kind of weird” and still gives him “a bad taste in my mouth,” he said. He feels it shows that players sometimes don’t control what happens.
This whole thing shows that as players, you sometimes don’t have control over what happens. The fact remains, Beltrán is set to enter the Hall of Fame this weekend, but his name is forever linked to this scandal. And it’s clear being mentioned in that report was costly for Beltrán.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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