None of the Houston Astros voted into the All-Star Game showed up on Tuesday, and now they’re being called out as frauds.
All of baseball’s stars, both past, and present, showed up at Coors Field on Tuesday for MLB All-Star Game festivities.
Everyone except the Houston Astros.
Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, and Michael Brantley were all voted into the All-Star Game this year, and all three gave fans a big old ‘thanks but no thanks‘ and didn’t make the trip to Denver.
Needless to say, the optics of the Astros going out of their way to not show up at the midsummer classic are not great.
Our buddy Thomas Carannante over at Yanks Go Yard very plainly states what we’re all thinking about the Astros being the one team to overwhelmingly avoid the All-Star Game:
This is a clear trend from one team. One team that knows they won’t be well received. One team that continues to play the victim after being found guilty of a significant transgression. One team that continues to point the finger at others and act as if everybody else is wrong for reacting to something that no doubt affected the integrity of the game.
Calling the Astros frauds for not showing up to the All-Star Game seems aggressive until you consider the context of other All-Star trips.
Gerrit Cole showed up to support his fellow Yankees on the team, as well as the American League side. Chris Bassitt was told he didn’t have to pitch in the game since he had a start just two days prior but took the mound to honor the votes that brought him to Denver.
ESPN’s Buster Olney actually has a pretty decent idea that doubles as a solution and a thinly veiled shot at players who were voted into the All-Star Game but opted not to show up.
All things considered, the Astros have gotten off incredibly easy after partaking in what should have been one of the most seismic scandals in baseball history. Cheating to win a World Series is hardly any different than throwing one, yet the 1919 Black Sox remain a scar on the game while the Astros have more than once gone out of their way to dance on the fact that they got away with an incredible baseball crime.
However, Altuve and the Astros are more than happy to troll a team while home in Houston but seemingly don’t have the guts to face the music anywhere else.