Reporter: “There were reports of when Manfred’s report came out you deleted a tweet that congratulated Altuve back in 2017. Is that accurate? Did you delete that?"
Aaron Judge: Yea, oh yea. I took it down right when the story broke out, and right when Mike Fiers came out and talked to The Athletic and stated what was going on in 2017. Once I heard that I was sick to my stomach. I had a lot of respect for those guys, what they did, and especially what they did for the city of Houston, and that whole organization for a team who was in last place and drafted right, got the right players in there, and eventually got the World Series. I had a lot of respect for them… Then to find out it wasn’t earned and that they cheated, it didn’t sit well with me, and I felt like the post I did didn’t mean the same anymore.”
New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, usually polite, measured, and professional when speaking to the media was surprisingly antagonistic towards the Houston Astros in regards to their notorious cheating scandal.
After telling reporters that he felt like Major League Baseball should have stripped the Astros of the 2017 World Series title, Judge also acknowledged rumors that he deleted social media posts congratulating Astros second baseman Jose Altuve for winning the 2017 American League MVP, which turned out leaving Judge as a runner-up in an extremely narrow vote.
Judge said he deleted the posts right when The Athletic’s initial report first came out that detailed the egregious sign-stealing, and told reporters “I felt like the post didn’t mean the same anymore.”