In a bizarre tweet storm that touched on everything from racism to performance-enhancing drugs, former Houston Astros catcher Evan Gattis became the latest member of the 2017 World Champions to confess to his role in the club’s infamous sign-stealing scheme.
‘I personally was a proponent of the idea at the time,’ wrote the 36-year-old Gattis, whose career ended in 2018.
In 2020, Major League Baseball revealed the results of an investigation that found the existence of a sign-stealing system in 2017 that allowed the Astros dugout to intercept and decipher hand signals between opposing pitchers and catchers before relaying that information to Houston hitters in the batters box.
As first detailed in a 2019 article in The Athletic, the organization recorded opposing catchers’ hand signals with a video camera in the centerfield bleachers at Houston’s Minute Maid Park. Players in the dugout would watch a live camera feed to decipher the signals and convey that information to hitters by banging a trash can. Typically one or two bangs would indicate a breaking ball to the Astros’ hitters, while no bangs would indicate an impending fastball.
On Monday, Gattis did not hold back, admitting that he knew what pitch New York Yankees hurler CC Sabathia was throwing him when hit a crucial home run in Game 7 of the 2017 American League Championship Series.
‘So you knew what pitch from CC was coming in Game 7?’ asked one fan.
‘Yes,’ Gattis replied.
And that’s not all Gattis admitted to. He also confessed to using PEDs.
‘Was lucky to see you play [left field] 2 of the 11 times you did, in 2015,’ one fan wrote to the lumbering former catcher.
‘I can guarantee I was terrified and probably on a performance enhancing drug both times,’ Gattis replied.
Gattis was never caught using PEDs during his career.
However, he and his Astros teammates were caught for their sign-stealing scheme, which resulted in suspensions for former Houston bench coach Alex Cora, who was managing the Red Sox at the time, as well as general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A. J. Hinch.
Several Astros players have apologized for their role in the scheme, such as third baseman Alex Bregman, but publicly the team continues to be tainted by the scandal, even after winning the 2022 World Series, ostensibly, without the benefit of any sign stealing.
There had been accusations that the Astros such as second baseman Jose Altuve went so far as to use remote buzzers inside their jerseys that allowed the dugout to communicate incoming pitch calls to hitters without the use of a trash can.
‘Honestly I have no idea,’ Gattis said when asked about the buzzers. ‘It used to be possible and I researched it. If anyone used them they were smart enough to not tell me.’
He later added: ‘I don’t know if there’s any truth to the buzzers. If there was Altuve wouldn’t want it anyway. He’s a reactionary hitter.’
Perhaps most damning, Gattis admitted to knowing what pitches Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw was throwing in the 2017 World Series.
Kershaw, a three-time Cy Young Award winner, yielded six runs in a Game 5 loss in Houston that year. In 11 innings at Dodger Stadium, where the sign-stealing scheme wasn’t being used by the Astros, Kershaw yielded only one earned run while striking out 16 Houston batters.
‘I remember knowing what was coming against Kershaw,’ Gattis tweeted. ‘As a team we swung and missed a handful of times only against him.’
From there, things took a bizarre turn as Gattis appeared to inject race into the conversation.
‘Racism in the form of name calling,’ he wrote. ‘Is something. Bigger than that is something else.’
He also made sexual comments to some Twitter users, one of whom he complemented for her ‘great t***.’
Ultimately Gattis signed off around 11:40pm on the east coast.
‘Aaaaaaand it turns out I say stupid stuff from time to time,’ he wrote. ‘Nite.’
It remains unclear what prompted Gattis’ confessions on Monday and the club has yet to respond to the renewed controversy.