2017 was fucking AWESOME. For a while. Finding out that they cheated - so brazenly and so STUPIDLY - was just heartbreaking. So goddamned dumb - and more than that, unecessary. Why they didn't just play cleanly and see where that got them, I don't know - the subsequent seasons have proven that they're a very well run organization. They're fantastic when it comes to player development. All they had to do was play by the rules. They didn't.
I'll never forget the dismay I felt when yet another Astro stayed back waiting for Sale's slider because they KNEW when the offspeed stuff was coming, and hit it out of the park. The 2017 Red Sox were a great team, and the Astros' cheating denied them their due. No forgiveness, because I can't be satisfied until each offending cheating Astro is hauled up on stage and forced to deliver Claudius' soliloquy from Hamlet:
O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
A brother's murder!—Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will;
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this twofold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn?
Forgive me my foul murder?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,—
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?
