The 2021 season marks the first time the Houston Astros are playing in front of fans during the regular season since the sign-stealing scandal from their 2017 championship season became known to fans during the 2020 offseason. The Astros opened up their season in Oakland, California, at the RingCentral Coliseum, taking on the Oakland A’s and were greeted with garbage can banging and Astros cheated signs.
Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, and Carlos Correa, and the rest of the Houston Astros were all welcomed with boos, no matter if they were a part of the 2017 championship team. During the Astros, 2017 season all through their World Series win, the entire sign-stealing scandal was in place. At the start of the 2017 season in April, players would relay signs to the batter when a runner was on second base. Two months later, in June, trash can banging became the Astros hitter’s best friend. In the tunnel, right before the dugout entrance, a monitor showed the pitches that the opposing pitcher would throw to the Astros. Every time there would be an off-speed pitch, the trash can be banged, alerting the players. As the trash can was banged, it meant that there would be a fastball coming to the hitters.
The Astros played in front of crowds during the 2020 and 2021 Spring Training season where they were booed, but this is the first time during the regular season, the Astros will play 82 games on the road where the crowd will let him hear all of the boos despite limited capacity due to COVID-19. Houston will play eighteen different teams this year across the 162-game season while playing 81 of the 162 games as the visiting team. The Astros can expect to hear the most boos from the Los Angeles Dodgers fans, the team that lost to the Houston Astros in the 2017 World Series. The New York Yankees fans will also be booing the Astros since they are the team that lost to the Astros on a Jose Altuve walk-off home run in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series in 2019, where Altuve was accused of wearing a buzzer to alert him of the pitch that was coming before his home run. Still, it was determined after an investigation that he was not wearing a buzzer.
Although COVID-19 has caused stadiums across the entire league to have a limited fan capacity, fans will make sure their presence is felt, especially when the Houston Astros are in town. Following the road trip in Oakland, the tour of boos will continue when Houston takes on the Los Angeles Angels on Monday, April 5th.
Jason Hochberg 