When MLB found the Houston Astros guilty of electronically stealing signs during the 2017 season, many members of the Los Angeles Dodgers understandably felt cheated as they lost the World Series in seven games to them that year.
Joe Kelly, who now pitches for the Chicago White Sox, was among the more outspoken players in the clubhouse despite not being part of the 2017 Dodgers.
The right-hander involved himself in the matter when he got into a verbal exchange with Carlos Correa after striking him out at Minute Maid Park during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season that caused both benches to clear and earned him an eight-game suspension.
While nothing more came from the incident, it set the stage for what would have been a highly anticipated World Series matchup between the teams that year. The Dodgers and Astros would have had to share a hotel in the MLB bubble, but only L.A. advanced while Houston fell to the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series.
During an appearance on “Dodger Talk” with David Vassegh of AM 570 L.A. Sports, Kelly promoted his new book and said he was prepared for the possibility of the Dodgers and Astros staying at the same hotel:
“What’s cool in the book is I go behind the scenes of ultimately us winning the World Series in the bubble. There’s a part about where if the Astros would’ve won and we would’ve played in the World Series, MLB was kind of panicking and trying to figure out what to do because the Astros were going to be staying in the same hotel. … There’s a part where MLB tried to go behind my back while I was practicing at the field and tried to have a conversation with my wife.
“They said, ‘Hey, if the Astros win, you need to tell your husband to simmer down and not do anything.’ She basically flat-out laughed at them and said, ‘Ha, good luck. I can’t even do that.’ There’s just these little ticky-tack parts and behind the scenes stuff that people don’t know about and are going to end up loving.”
While three years have passed since the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal came to light, Kelly opined this past October that the team will never fully escape negative perception, and that the majority of fans rooted for the Philadelphia Phillies to defeat them in the 2022 World Series.
Kelly goes into further detail about his plans for the Astros in 2020 as part of a chapter in his book, “A Damn Near Perfect Game: Reclaiming America’s Pastime,” which releases February 28.
Joe Kelly: Incident with Carlos Correa ‘was perfect’ as opening for new book
Kelly’s upcoming book explains the issues he personally has with MLB and how they’re approaching rule changes, along with a myriad personal tales from his time in the big leagues.
The first chapter begins with Kelly’s benches-clearing brawl with Correa, which he believes is the ideal way to start off the book.
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