The Houston Astros, having drawn the ire of fans and analysts all across the country, aren’t exactly the most popular team in Major League Baseball.
Astros fans, however, have had no problem defending their team, especially the fans at spring training.
“Astros fans are indignant,” Sports Radio 610 Astros reporter Brandon Scott said on After Hours with Amy Lawrence. “They are on the defensive right now. The type of people that come out here really just want to interact with the players anyway. The people that have come here have come here for that, and they were going to come regardless. You get the sense that they were going to come before or regardless of if this scandal broke. It’s been very much a different tone from the fans that are here versus the fans that you might see on Twitter or have conversations with elsewhere.”
Many critics felt the Astros’ public apology was insincere and incomplete. Alex Bregman’s speech, for example, seemed rehearsed and offered nothing more than generalities.
Has he showed actual remorse since then?
“He showed remorse,” Scott said.“He didn’t try to make excuses. He owned it. He’s owned it. But he’s also been very quiet. It’s been odd to see him [quiet] because he’s very much a boisterous [person], kind of the personality of the team – and there hasn’t been a whole lot of that given what we’re talking about. So that’s just been odd to see from Alex Bregman given what we know about him and his personality.
“But all of them have, at the very least, tried to atone in some way or at the very least show some accountability and some transparency,” Scott continued. “I thought Carlos Correa did a pretty good job with that the other day with his interview with Ken Rosenthal and then a little bit later with the rest of the media. I think Justin Verlander put it best a couple of days ago when he said, ‘We dug our grave, and we’re in it.’ That is the situation.”