It Happened To Me: I Knew the Truth About That Baseball Scandal and No One in New York City Believed Me

I knew my idol wasn’t cheating, but when I said so it felt like the entire city was against me

By Shirin Pechefsky

It was a beautiful balmy day and the Astros had vanquished the Yankees the previous night. José Altuve carried the team through multiple incredible innings. I was proudly wearing my jersey when my friend and I were walking out of our favorite lunch spot and someone on a bike yelled, “FUCK ALTUVE!” The phrase rattled me to my core. The world grew dark and dreary, like all the life had been sucked out of my perfect day. 

A bit of background about me and José. He is a tiny, hardworking second baseman with a huge smile. He was sent home by scouts several times on account of being so short. He has an incredibly humble attitude despite being a perennial all-star. I am also a tiny ball player and like to think I am humble, and therefore he is me and I am him. 

Watching my Astros playing the Dodgers in LA.

There’s just one huge problem with literally being José Altuve and living in New York City: His team was cheating in 2017 when they won against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series and then against the Dodgers in the World Series. In summation, they had picked up on other teams’ signs, meaning they knew whether a slider, curveball, fastball, etc. was coming, giving them an advantage over pitchers. The Astros faced the Yankees again in the 2019 ALCS, and José Altuve hit the walk-off homerun to send his team to the World Series again. A month later, intel about the 2017 cheating scandal was unveiled, sparking outrage among fans, a lot of it targeted at the face of the team: José Altuve. Fans suspected that the Astros had built a buzzer for him to wear under his jersey to tell him the signs. I believed these accusations for a while, and my heart broke in two. It made so much sense: José’s team was cheating in 2017, he told them not to tear his shirt off after the home run, and he stumbled over his words when he was asked about it.

Then I thought about it. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone has their flaws, but I felt like I  knew José. It would take a whole lot to make him feel the need to use a buzzer. So, “Cheated” by Andy Martino became my bible. I annotated it thoroughly and referenced it every chance I got. I also researched every article, watched every video. The more I looked at the accusations, the more false they seemed.

These accusations originated from a fake Twitter account (the beginning of most false internet conspiracies). Sure, he was acting weird, but (and I mean this in the best possible way) he’s just kind of a weird guy. He only took part in the initial cheating involuntarily, often rebuking his teammates for trying to force him. Upon further inspection, a large portion of the Astros organization (meaning at least 40 people) told the same story: José didn’t cheat.

After getting yelled at, I stopped wearing Astros apparel outside, but I kept on engaging in arguments. Even after all my research, I was still confronted by many angry New Yorkers, particularly boisterous men. “You’re just hopping on the bandwagon… You don’t know what you’re talking about… Softball isn’t a sport… If you reference ‘Cheated’ by Andy Martino one more time I’m going to throw that book in the Hudson…”

Getting into it with my friend's dad.

My friends found it difficult to bring me to their houses because I would get into arguments with their fathers. I tried my best to refrain, but how could I when they were so wrong?

One time, I got into a screaming match with my cousin about it, almost ruining our family game night. His claim was that Altuve is an atrocious person who has everything he could have ever wanted, and yet he cheated. This was a completely heinous argument in my eyes. Our voices got louder and louder until: “YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT!” “WELL, YOU’RE SPEAKING OUT OF YOUR ASS!” Our aunts told us we were taking it too far, so we shut up and played a resentful game of Bananagrams.

Later that year, I went to a random Yankees game. It was already a dark, cold night before the rain came in. Fans hid inside the stadium, and out of pure boredom, the bleacher creatures united in a rhythmic chant that surpassed the sound of thunder: “FUCK ALTUVE! FUCK ALTUVE! FUCK ALTUVE!” 

“He’s not even here,” I said. “Why are they so hell-bent on hating him?”

I wanted to keep fighting, but all of the cacophony was getting to be too much for me. It was the first time where I felt like I knew everything about something, and still, it seemed that no one in New York City believed me. Eventually, I didn’t even want people to agree with me, I just wanted them to consider the possibility that they might be wrong. Because if they were so sure about José’s devious character, then what did it say about me? 

Just a few months later, I was on my way to meet some friends. Ten blocks towards the train, I realized that I was going into the city in an Astros shirt, right after they had beaten the Yankees in the 2022 ALCS. So, I carefully went into the subway station with my arms crossed, trying to cover the logo. There was a man lingering by me on the platform. I tensed up and stared at the ground, but when I glanced at him, he was smiling. 

“You know,” he said. “Your Astros might’ve beat my Yankees, but I’m rooting for Altuve to do good in the World Series.” I was so pleasantly surprised that I can’t even remember what I said in response, if I said anything at all. I’d been beefing with New York City for years, but at that moment, all I could think about was how grateful I was to have grown up here.

My beloved José Altuve jersey hanging up

Things died down over the next few years and a lot of people forgot about the whole scandal. I worry about bringing it up, because I don’t want to reopen old wounds. But this plague of being José Altuve, of being tiny, of being a girl with a squeaky voice trying to yell over loud men is something I still carry with me. I do wish I could make everyone in New York City believe me, but that’s a pointless endeavor. 

José once said: “I like to prove people right, not wrong. I do it for the people who actually believe in me.” So, nowadays, I often allow Yankee fans to stew in their misbeliefs and only raise my research with people who are willing to listen. The other day, I was working at a softball camp, and a few ten-year-old girls spotted José Altuve on my lockscreen. I told them he was my favorite player, and they started screaming bloody murder at me. I laughed and once they calmed down, we sat in a circle together and I explained my perspective. They listened intently, and one of them even said, “I think I understand better now.”