Evan Gattis on the 2017 Astros: ‘We obviously cheated baseball’

One of the lost opportunities of a truncated baseball season is fewer chances for fans to boo the Astros for their electronic sign-stealing scandal during their championship season in 2017.

Evan Gattis was a backup catcher and designated hitter for the Astros that season, and was 3-for-10 with five walks in the World Series against the Dodgers. He started all three games in Houston as DH, and pinch hit in three of the four games in Los Angeles.

Gattis, who retired after the 2018 season, was a guest on the “755 Is Real” podcast on The Athletic, a Braves podcast (Atlanta was his first major league team), and in the second of two episodes, dropped Thursday, talked about Houston’s sign-stealing scandal.

“What we did was wrong, don’t get it twisted. It was wrong for the nature of competition, not even just baseball,” Gattis said on the podcast, hosted by David O’Brien and former Braves pitcher Eric O’Flaherty. “We obviously cheated baseball.

“I’m not asking for sympathy, or anything like that. If our punishment is being hated by everybody forever, just like, whatever. I don’t know what should be done, but something had to fucking be done. I do agree with that, big-time. I do think it’s good for baseball that we’re cleaning it up.

“I still to this day — I’ve thought about it a fucking shit ton — and I still don’t know how to feel,” Gattis said. “I know I’ll get ripped by somebody like, ‘That’s not an apology,’ and if I did apologize it still wouldn’t be good enough. Yeah, no shit it’s not gonna be good enough. I understand that it’s not fucking good enough to say sorry. I get it.”