It remains to be seen how the Houston Astros will perform this season, in the wake of the what is perhaps the worst cheating scandal in baseball history. Will being called the Asterisks (and a lot of much worse things, many NSFW) everywhere they go be a distraction and hindrance?
Or will wearing the black hat and becoming everyone’s least favorite team galvanize and unify them? The bookies are banking on the latter. The Houston Astros currently have the second best championship odds behind only the New York Yankees right now.
In fact, if you are going to be betting on baseball like the wagering you can do at europa casino mobile, you’ll typically see the Lone Star State team backed at +600, with only the Bronx Bombers getting shorter odds, at +350. That’s according to Caesars sports book, who released updated odds earlier today.
The best odds among National League teams belong to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are also priced at +600. many Dodgers fans believe their team is the true World Series champion of 2017 and 2018, having been cheated by the Astros in ’17 and the Boston Red Sox in ’18. Whether or not Major League Baseball takes further punitive action against the team from space city, the Astros will forever own their infamous status as sign-stealers. Like a gambling tattoo inked into the skin, their asterisk/tainted legacy cannot be removed.
It’s a much much worse scandal that what the “Black Sox” of 100 years ago, when eight players on the Chicago White Sox were thrown out of baseball forever for taking money from gamblers and intentionally losing the World Series. In the wake of their transgressions coming to light, the club fired both manager AJ Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow after the league suspended both men for a whole season.
MLB also fined the Houston Astros $5 million and stripped them of their 2020 and 2021 first- and second-round draft picks.
Now that’s a trade, every single MLB team would make- $5 million and four draft picks for a series title? Done and done! Baseball will need to punish them much more severely than that slap on the wrist. And the threat that they could might motivate the ‘Stros to make one last run, aware that this could be their last chance with this championship core in place.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link.