MESA, Arizona — Another day, another round of shots at the cheating Astros and the soft-on-crime commissioner of baseball.
From the Yankees’ Aaron Judge in Tampa, Florida, to three-time World Series winner Jon Lester in Cubs camp in Arizona, the anger and disgust around baseball on Tuesday showed little sign of going away anytime soon.
Lester minced no words when asked about commissioner Rob Manfred’s recent self-defense for deciding not to strip the Astros of their 2017 title — citing lack of precedent and calling the World Series trophy just “a piece of metal.”
“To me that’s somebody who’s never played our game,” said Lester, who won with the Red Sox in 2007 and 2013 and with the Cubs in 2016. “We play for a reason. You play for that piece of metal. I’m very proud of the three that I have. If that’s the way he feels he needs to take his name off the trophy.”
Lester said when people visit his home, the first thing he shows them is his trophy case.
It represents “a lot of years, a lot of hard work,” he said. “I’m sure that hurt a lot of guys when they saw that, especially guys that haven’t won it that have been striving for years to get it. I’m sure if Adam Dunn heard that, who [dressed for] one playoff game in his whole career, he’d probably be pretty upset. It’s a very, very special thing that he brought down.”
Earlier in the day in Florida, it was Judge — who finished second to Astros sign-stealing convict Jose Altuve in a close American League MVP race — confirming that he deleted a social media post congratulating Altuve at the time.
"You cheated and you didn't earn it."
— ESPN (@espn) February 18, 2020
Aaron Judge said the Astros should be stripped of their 2017 World Series title because it doesn't "hold any value." pic.twitter.com/IbGrWGQqsn
“I was sick to my stomach,” he said to reporters Tuesday about when he first learned of the Astros’ cheating that year. “To find out it wasn’t earned, [that] they cheated, that didn’t sit well with me.”
Lester’s and Judge’s comments came two days after Cubs pitcher Yu Darvish — who was shelled twice by the Astros in that Series while pitching for the Dodgers — issued his strongest rebuke yet of the Houston cheaters.
He suggested the title be stripped — “piece of metal” or not.
“I am not angry, but it’s just a weird feeling,” Darvish said. “Like in the Olympics if the players cheat, you can’t have a gold medal, right? But they still have a World Series title. That makes me feel weird.”
Darvish’s comments came one day after teammate Kris Bryant called the Astros scandal “a disgrace to the game” and said, “I personally think it’s worse than steroids.”
On Saturday, Carlos Correa dug the Astros deeper into the muck when he defended teammate Jose Altuve in part by ripping the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger for blasting Altuve and the Astros earlier in the week.
“I saw that [Saturday],” Darvish said. “So they cheated. I think right now they don’t have to talk. They shouldn’t talk like that right now.”
Darvish also said he agrees “for sure” the electronic sign-stealing scheme impacted some pitchers’ careers and didn’t seem to think the Astros have shown any remorse for that.
“Some people lost [their] job, right?” he said. “They have to do something. They have to apologize more. I don’t feel anything from their guys.”
Later that day, Darvish responded on Twitter to a gloating Astro fan’s post of a picture of the 2017 trophy with: “Gorgeous trashcan! I like it!”
