The winter is usually a cold time for Major League Baseball, but leading up to the 2020 season, MLB players have been hot after the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal.

Last week, the owner of the Astros, Jim Crane, and a couple of players, José Altuve and Alex Bregman, had a press conference apologizing after cheating during the 2017 season. The apology was as fake as could possibly be, and it had the attitude of “we just want to get this over with” written all over it.

Jim Crane wasn’t making any sense throughout the press conference, saying the cheating “didn’t impact the game whatsoever” despite the fact that he fired his general manager and his manager a few weeks ago. He claims that the players shouldn’t be punished and that they should be able to keep their World Series title.

What these past few days have taught me is that these players don’t have any respect for the game. To them it’s just a big joke, as they make up excuses why they didn’t celebrate a certain way or why they didn’t cheat at all in the first place.

To stand up there as the owner of the Houston Astros and say “I should not be held accountable for these actions” is absolutely insane.
As a baseball fan, this just makes me upset, and it feels like players don’t care enough about the sport anymore. They just want the massive contracts and the recognition. Now that doesn’t go for every player, but the owner said he wasn’t apologizing for “cheating the game;” he was apologizing for “breaking the rules.”

To me, that shows you don’t care and don’t want to face the consequences. You got caught, and you now have to deal with the shame. Altuve and Bregman appeared lost and nervous, and they looked like they didn’t want to be there. There should be no sympathy at all for these players that cheated.

Now the Astros came out and said they didn’t want other opponents and players upset about it anymore. Are you kidding me? They cost people a title, money and jobs. Worst of all, they made a mockery of the game of baseball and the respect of baseball fans.

“Yeah … Kinda …” was the response from José Altuve, the 2017 MVP and leader of this club when asked if he knew what he did was wrong. The apology was weak, it was short and it was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever seen from a professional sports organization.

I would never wish any type of injuries for any of the Astros next season, but opposing teams are not going to take this lightly. There will be fighting in Astros games, and there is going to be a lot of trash talking. It’s going to be an ugly season for the Astros, and the pressure is on them to earn the respect back from baseball fans. You know what, they don’t deserve anything but pressure in 2020. Good luck, but no sympathy.