Astros vs. Braves. Ouch. It’s hard to cheer for anyone in this World Series

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This article was published 25/10/2021 (1676 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The typical sports script usually involves a hero and a villain, or at least a David vs. Goliath.

This year’s World Series just happens to pit one bad guy against another.

The Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves will set foot on Major League Baseball’s biggest stage for Game 1 on Tuesday night at Minute Maid Park. Unfortunately, neither one appears all that deserving of the honour.

The Astros are proven cheaters. Maybe not this version of the Astros, but the one from a few years ago certainly was, and that stank has yet to dissipate. They made a mockery of the game with the 2017 sign-stealing scandal that involved a centre-field camera, a direct feed and a garbage can. Somehow the system was elaborate and rudimentary all at once.

Similar claims were made about 2018, and the allegations haven’t completely disappeared even to this day. Earlier this month, former Blue Jays reliever Ryan Tepera of the Chicago White Sox made similar accusations during the AL Division Series by pointing out how much better the Astros’ swings were at home vs. on the road. In his words, there was a lot of “sketchy stuff” going on and everyone knew exactly what he meant.

Whether that’s true or not is impossible for anyone on the outside to say, but the 2017 complaints were confirmed by an MLB investigation. General manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were banned for an entire year while former bench coach, and current Red Sox manager, Alex Cora temporarily lost his job. It ranks right up there with the 1919 Black Sox, Pete Rose’s betting saga and the steroid era as the biggest scandals in the sport’s history.

The players got a free pass on just about everything after they were granted immunity by the commissioner’s office in exchange for truthful testimony. Former Astro Carlos Beltran had to resign just weeks after being hired as manager of the New York Mets, but all active players got through this mess unscathed, even though they were just as guilty and complicit as anyone else.

A lot of players from that 2017 team remain there today. George Springer, Gerrit Cole and Josh Reddick escaped the spotlight by signing elsewhere — which doesn’t make them any less guilty — but José Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa and Yuli Gurriel still put on the same uniform. They’re seeking redemption, trying to prove they’re good enough to win without cheating. For some of us at home, they just seem like criminals who were given a “get out of jail free” card.

The Astros’ villainous ways also run deeper and more sinister than stealing signs. Let’s not forget this is the team that traded for closer Roberto Osuna while he was still facing charges for alleged domestic assault. It’s the club that employed and tried to cover for Brandon Taubman, the former assistant GM who openly taunted a group of female reporters with a misogynistic rant and later denied it ever happened.

The Braves aren’t exactly saints here, either.

The tomahawk chop chant will be all over your television screens this week with crowds perpetuating the worst forms of cultural appropriation. This act seemed tired enough when the Jays made a mockery of it in the 1992 World Series. Now after all the progress we’ve supposedly made as a society, it can only be considered straight-up racist.

Adding to the embarrassment, for Game 6 of the NL Championship Series the Braves asked outspoken anti-vaxxer Travis Tritt to sing the national anthem. MLB pulled its all-star game out of the state this year because of new restrictive voting laws that had a negative impact on people of colour. A few months ago, Braves star outfielder Marcell Ozuna was arrested on charges of strangulation and battery involving his wife. The list of wrongdoings goes on and on.

Canadians tuning in to the World Series will have to pick the lesser of two evils, and it’s not difficult to figure out which one the majority will side with.

The Braves are a former rival of the Jays, and they might stand for some truly vile things, but they’ve got some people we like to call our own as well.

Around these parts, most of the focus likely will be on Alex Anthopoulos, the Braves GM and former architect of the Jays, who also happens to be from Montreal. Anthopoulos assembled a post-season team each of the last four years, and once before with the Jays, but this marks the first time he has advanced to the Series as a GM.

Then there’s first baseman Freddie Freeman, who was born in California but has dual citizenship thanks to his Canadian parents. He played for Canada at the World Baseball Classic to honour his mother after she passed away from skin cancer, and remains one of the most likeable guys in the sport with one of its sweetest swings.

There would be even more Canadian content on this Braves team if it wasn’t for right-hander Mike Soroka being out the entire year with a torn Achilles. Soroka was Atlanta’s best pitcher in 2019 and its opening day starter a year ago, but hasn’t been available since last August following the devastating injury.

The Astros will be trying to win their second World Series over the last five seasons, in what will likely be Correa’s final year with the team. The underdog Braves, who were two games under .500 at the trade deadline, are somewhere they haven’t been in 22 seasons.

The games should be great. A lot of the narratives surrounding them, not so much.

This might be one World Series where you shouldn’t be rooting too hard for either side.

Gregor Chisholm is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @GregorChisholm or reach him via email: gchisholm@thestar.ca