The Houston Astros continue to be the most trolled team in sports this month, as the now so called ‘Houston Asterisks’ wait for Major League Baseball to conduct its investigation into this messy illegal sign-stealing scandal.
George Springer has apparently been the first player to be 'punished' in the scandal, with Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees fans (probably) taking his 2017 World Series MVP trophy away from him, and instead awarding Houston’s ‘Center Field Camera Man’ as the most irreplaceable and significant individual in the Astros’ thrilling seven game series triumph over the Dodgers.
The 2017 World Series page on Wikipedia boasted the ‘correction’ for a few moments before it was eventually edited back to Springer as the MVP, who went 11 for 29 (.379) in the series, including five home runs, and a new WS record for extra base hits (8) and total bases (29).
The humorous trolling came a couple week after The Athletic implicated the Astros on the damning illegal sign stealing allegations, when former Astros pitcher turned whistleblower Mike Fiers first detailed the cheating operation in The Athletic's report.
Fiers, who pitched for the team from 2015-2017, said the Astros had a TV monitor around the home dugout at Minute Maid Park that had a clear and magnified view of the opponents’ catcher that was shot from a discrete center field camera.
Astros players or staff would then watch the rigged up monitor in the tunnel while Houston players were batting, and decipher where the opposing catcher was setting up and what fingers he was throwing down. They would then relay to the Astros batter up at the plate which pitch was likely coming next by banging on trash cans, whistling, or hitting the ceiling of the dugout to signal if it was an off-speed pitch or a fastball.
Video from the team's 2017 World Series DVD, appears to back these claims up.