Former Astros catcher: We cheated baseball

Evan Gattis has heard it all since he and former Astros teammates were caught stealing signs during their 2017 championship season.

While other players on that team have tried to justify the club’s actions or apologize and move on, Gattis remained silent on the matter.

Until this week, that is.

He didn’t hold much back.

“Everybody wants to be the best player in the (expletive) world, man, and we cheated that, for sure.”

The now retired catcher candidly shared his thoughts on the Houston scandal with Braves beat writer David O’Brien on The Athletic’s “755 Is Real” podcast. Gattis’ career started in Atlanta in 2013.

Gattis spoke on the now tarnished legacy of that World Series title, and how the franchise might never live it down. He shared that he feels for fans, opponents who were robbed, and his teammates – who lost the opportunity to find out how good they are on fair terms.

“I don’t think I can win the hearts over of anyone right now at all, or maybe ever,” Gattis said. “I don’t know how to feel yet. I don’t think anybody – we didn’t look at our moral compass and say, ‘Yeah, this is right.’ It was almost like paranoia warfare or something. But what we did was wrong. Like, don’t get it twisted. It was wrong for the nature of competition, not even just baseball. Yeah, that was wrong. I will say that. …

“We obviously cheated baseball and cheated fans. Fans felt duped. I feel bad for fans.”

Gattis also said that he hadn’t commented on the situation sooner because he felt it wasn’t his place to do so. He’s now out of the game, but many of his friends had jobs at stake during MLB’s investigation last winter.