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The Houston Astros cheating scandal took a wild turn on Thursday afternoon when several Internet rumors accused players of wearing buzzers to steal signals from pitchers.
The rumor originated from a Twitter account posing as Carlos Beltran’s niece who claims Jose Altuve wore a buzzer under his jersey during games that relayed tipped pitches from the video guy watching the game in the hallway.
Did Carlos Beltran’s niece just confirm why Jose Altuve didn’t want his jersey ripped off…? 👀 pic.twitter.com/tdBn81Mjr8
— Chris Dixon (@cdixon25) January 16, 2020
https://twitter.com/Jomboy_/status/1217886556263940098
5 different people within baseball, not connected to each other at all, have told me 'the buzzers are very real' with the same details and shit.
— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) January 16, 2020
I’ve heard this from multiple parties too, for what it’s worth… https://t.co/zDlp0x4bKs
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) January 16, 2020
According to ESPN’s Marly Rivera, Beltran’s family denies that the twitter account was associated with anybody related to Beltran.
Correction: someone posing as Beltrans niece who has correctly reported two things about him before they were official.
We're in the golden age of burner accounts and fake burner accounts https://t.co/uhJH5mBkYj
— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) January 16, 2020
A video of Altuve telling his teammates to rip up his jersey after he hit a walkoff homer against the Yankees in the 2019 ALCS went viral after the rumors made the rounds.
https://twitter.com/Joseph_Merkel/status/1217889982775300096
At the time Altuve said he didn’t want teammates rip his jersey off because he was “shy” but fans weren’t buying it.
https://twitter.com/KyleNYY/status/1217890203207184386
Altuve’s agent Scott Boras immediately released a statement saying his client denied the allegations made against him.
Jose Altuve called me and said he wants it known that he has never, ever worn an electronic device in a major league game—ever. He never received any form—of a trigger or any information—via an electronic product that was on his body or in his uniform. He has never worn any electronic device. Ever.”