WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (SportsRadio 610) -- The Astros are trying to move on.
"I'm done talking about the offseason and what happened," Carlos Correa said Monday to a massive throng of reporters prior to the Astros first full squad workout.
Correa, of course, stirred up a hornets' nest on Saturday when in two separate interviews he ripped Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger for saying Jose Altuve stole the 2017 American League MVP from Aaron Judge and the World Series from his Dodgers, and defended Altuve from allegations that he was wearing a buzzer when hitting his walk-off home run in game six of the 2019 American League Championship Series.
"Earlier in the year, he hit a walk-off at Minute Maid Park; I ripped off his shirt with Tony Kemp," Correa told the Athletic. "There are pictures of that. There are videos of that. You can go look at it. I ripped off his shirt, and his wife told my wife, 'Why is Carlos ripping Altuve's shirt? I don't like that.'
"So, when he's running from third base to home plate, I'm the guy up front. The first one waiting for him. He's like, 'Don't take my shirt off.' The second reason — he doesn't want me to talk about this, but I'm going to say it, is because he's got an unfinished tattoo on his collarbone that honestly looked terrible. It was a bad tattoo, and he didn't want nobody to see it. He didn't want to show it at all."
On Monday, Altuve walked into the Astros clubhouse, took off his shirt, revealing a tattoo on his chest.
After making his way to his locker, he put on another shirt and walked out. It was a silent statement because Altuve had no interest in responding to Bellinger or anyone else.
"I have nothing to say about him at all."
For over three months the worlds of Altuve and his Astros teammates have been turned upside down, but on Monday, when they weren't zig-zagging reporters, the defending American League Champions were able to feel like normal baseball players again.
"We're ready to move forward," Altuve said. "We're here, first workout today, I think it went pretty good. The boys looked good and in good shape, and we're ready."
The Astros know they will be enemy number one whenever they leave Harris County once the season begins, but Alex Bregman believes they can show people across the country what they are really about.
"I think everyone who knows us knows who we really are and knows that we're good people, and I think like we said the other day our team made some mistakes and it's time to learn from them."
No one in the Astros clubhouse thinks the fallout from their cheating scandal is going away anytime soon.
But on Monday, as they gathered as a team for the first time in 2020, they tried to move forward.
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