Former Houston Astros star Carlos Beltran is admiring that his team’s infamous sign-stealing scandal creates a “stain” on the team’s 2017 World Series title.
"Yeah, there is (a stain),” Beltran said in an interview with his new YES Network employer, adding, “What we did …we all have taken responsibility, and at some point we all have shown remorse about what we did."
Added Beltran: "We did cross the line. We all did what we did. Looking back today, we were wrong.''
Beltran, in his first extensive comments on issue, concedes that the Astros' championship is now tainted by the scandal. At the same time, Beltran adds that the Astros organization failed to properly relay and enforce a league memo from September 2017 in which Commissioner Rob Manfred warned teams against using cameras and other technologies to gain an unfair advantage.
“A lot of people always ask me why you didn't stop it,” he said. “And my answer is, ‘I didn't stop it the same way no one stopped it. This is working for us. Why you gonna stop something that is working for you?’
“So if the organization would've said something to us, we would've stopped it for sure."
An MLB investigation into the cheating meant job losses for a number of figures, including Beltran, who was fired as New York Mets manager just weeks after being hired.
Beltran seemed to indicate that the Astros' sign-stealing system was designed as a response to other clubs doing the same.
“We felt that some teams have something going on,” said the nine-time All-Star Beltran. “So we felt that we needed to create our own, you know, and that’s what happened.”
More must-reads: