LeBron opines on Astros' cheating scandal

Admitted New York Yankees fan LeBron James threw his opinion into the Houston Astros cheating-scandal fray on the same day Yankees slugger Aaron Judge also sounded off on the situation. While opening with the caveat that baseball is not his game, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar expressed disappointment in both the Astros and with baseball commissioner Rob Manfred while posting on Twitter.

‘Listen I know I don't play baseball but I am in Sports and I know if someone cheated me out of winning the title and I found out about it I would be F---ing irate! I mean like uncontrollable about what I would/could do!" James said, in part, in the first of two tweets. An MLB investigation confirmed the Astros used video equipment, including a television shot from center field to decode catchers' signs to opposing pitchers and relay what pitch was coming to Houston batters at the plate.

The most egregious offenses were found to have happened during the 2017 season when the Astros defeated the Yankees in seven games of the American League Championship Series and took down the Los Angeles Dodgers in a seven-game World Series. Last week, reigning National League MVP Cody Bellinger of the Los Angeles Dodgers said that 2017 MVP Jose Altuve of the Astros "stole an MVP from Judge in 2017." He also said the Astros stole the title from the Dodgers.

Judge took to the podium in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday where he gave his thoughts. "It wasn't earned the way of playing the game right and fighting to the end," Judge said of the Astros' 2017 title. "The biggest thing about competition is laying it all out on the line, and whoever's the better player, better person, comes out on top. And to know that another team had an advantage -- nothing that you can really guard against -- I just don't feel like that's earned."

Although not referencing the Yankees or Judge, James appeared to show his support for the slugger while addressing Manfred, who elected to give immunity to Astros players while gathering evidence of wrongdoing. "Listen here baseball commissioner listen to your players speaking today about how disgusted, mad, hurt, broken, etc etc about this," James wrote. "Literally, the ball ... is in your court(or should I say field) and you need to fix this for the sake of Sports!"

Numerous players have criticized Manfred's decision to not punish any Houston players. Astros manager A.J. Hinch was fired due to the scandal, and it also led to the Boston Red Sox parting ways with manager Alex Cora (Houston's bench coach at the time) and the New York Mets moving on from recently hired manager Carlos Beltran (a Houston player at the time). Houston general manager Jeff Luhnow also was dismissed.

Luhnow and Hinch were suspended by Major League Baseball, which also fined the franchise $5 million and stripped the team of its draft picks in the first and second rounds over the next two seasons. --Field Level Media

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)