WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - On Saturday, the Houston Astros played their first baseball game since the world found out, and then had confirmed by a Major League Baseball investigation, that they cheated in 2017. The spring training
stadium that they share with the reigning champion Washington Nationals was
dominated by Nats fans, who booed every opportunity they had (which wasn’t many
- in a rain-shortened game, the Astros started only players who debuted in 2018,
or later, or not at all yet).
--------------------------------------------------------------- WEST PALM BEACH,
Fla. - On Saturday, the Houston Astros played their first baseball game since
the world found out, and then Inland
Empire 66ers had confirmed by a Major League Baseball investigation, that
they cheated Stockton
Ports in 2017. The spring training stadium that they share with the reigning
champion Washington Nationals was dominated by Nats fans, who booed every
opportunity they had (which wasn’t many - in a rain-shortened game, the Astros
started only players who debuted in 2018, or later, or not at all yet). But
among the triumphant red T-shirts and at least one custom polo that said “CHAMPS
VS CHEATS,” there were also Astros fans - people who love baseball enough to be
at a spring teaching game over 1,000 miles from Minute Maid Park; people who
have nothing to do with the now infamous trash-can banging scheme. When the
Astros betrayed the baseball world, they betrayed these people too. Or maybe
most of all. Or maybe they don’t feel that way. Fan stories come with a built-in
caveat. Every archetype could be contradicted or Bakersfield
Blaze undermined by a dozen other examples. There’s nothing to become
concluded about San
Jose Giants Astros followers en masse. Beyond that, the concourse of a
springtime Visalia
Rawhide training facility is a self-selecting group. The people here in West
Palm aren’t the ones who decided this offseason to abandon the Astros. Even so,
I wanted to know how they felt about their team’s indiscretions and the
subsequent scandal.