WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Suck it up, Yankees.
That was the word from the cheatin’ Astros and their owner Jim Crane, regarding their win over the Yankees in the 2017 ALCS in seven games, Houstꦐon’s four wins coming at Minute Maid Park, a﷽nd subsequent World Series victory over the Dodgers.
The Astros held Apology Thursday at the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, and Crane believes the trash-can-banging Astros’ 2017 championship to be totally legit.
Asked by The Post what he would like to say to the Yankees on a day the Astros apologized for their cheatin’ ways in 2017, Crane answered, “Listen, the Yankees have had a few comments out there. Our opinion is this didn’t impact the game. We had a good team. We won the World Series, and we’ll leave it at that.”
Asked again, Crane said, “Basically, as the commissioner said, he is not going to go backwards. It’s hard to determine how it impacted the game, if it impacted the game and that’s where we are going to leave it. … The commissioner made it clear the championship would stay intact, and I agree with him.”
Just a wild guess, but it impacted the game and the season and the postseason. These are forever the Astrorisks. Over in Yankees camp, Boone said of Crane’s comments, “That’s quite a stretch.”
The Astros are moving on even if the rest of baseball has trouble with that. As for the Yankees losing in 2017, that’s life. The Yanke🌜es will have to get their revenge on the field.
Thꦑe Astros apologized for cheating in 2017, but also said they are still champions.
And don’t blame the players, either, that was another point made during the long day. The Astros painted the picture that this all falls on GM Jeff Luhnow and ꦓmanager A.J. Hinch, who were both su♛spended for the season by MLB and then fired by Crane.
“We hold those two guys accountable for not stopping that action,” Crane said. Carlos Beltran also was singled out by Crane, saying, “Hopefully he’ll learn from this.”
Shortstop Carlos Correa put forth the most heartfelt apology, saying, “We know we are wrong, so we have to be responsible for what we did. It’s an unfair advantage. I’m not going to lie to you. And that’s why people got suspended and that’s why people got fired because it’s not right to do that. What we did was really wrong. I wish we would have stopped it at the time. It is not going to happen again.”
Correa💃 said he has friends on the Yankees and he will express those thought💟s to them when he sees them on the field. Give Correa credit for standing up and admitting the Astros cheated and it helped win games.
The Astros also tried to paint this as technology run amok. Hinch, remember, said that he damaged moni🌠tors, but Josh Reddick said he never saw 🃏that happen.
“It is what it is,” Reddick said. “It’s a bad day all around. We are remorseful that we didn’t step in and do something to fix it.”
As for the Astros’ championship being tainted, Reddick said, “Everybody has their own opinions, but in my opinion, it’s not.”
He admitted it would be a “difficult conversation’’ to reach out to the Yankees or Dodgers. “I think it goes back to not being a tainted championship. We still went out there and won ballgames.”
This was wrong. Dead wrong. New manager Dusty Baker will try to put all the pieces together again for the Astros. Dusty once managed Barry Bonds, and now he has the cheatin’ Astros on hꦫis resume. I asked Dusty who taught him cheating was wrong.
“From my mom, when I was in elementary school,” Baker said.
What message will he pass along?
“I think they’ve learned their lesson and that this will be an example to the world, an example to baseball,” Baker said. “I think this will go a long ways, the fact that they apologized, the fact that they admitted it, and we can turn a negative into a positive.”
And still keep their 2017 World Series trophy.
The Yankees will have to live with all that. More fu♐el to the fire that will rage in ꦡThe Bronx. You can be sure of that.