With the conclusion of the 2022 World Series, the Houston Astros stand alone at the top of the baseball world. It is the culmination of a roller-coaster-esque past half-decade where they were the center of cheating scandals but able to consistently come so close to replicating their highest highs in franchise history.

In 2017, they became one of the most beloved teams in the league as they went from a perennial 100-loss team to taking the league by storm, winning 101 games, having the MVP in José Altuve and bolstering a bright young core that looked to contend for years to come.

Since then, they have made it back to the Fall Classic in 2019, 2021 and 2022. With their 4-2 series win over the Philadelphia Phillies, they are once again the best team in baseball.

However, outside of Houston, barely anyone is celebrating their win. In November 2019, thanks to Jomboy Media, The Athletic and Foolish Baseball, it was discovered that the Astros used a sign-stealing system in their World Series-winning 2017 season.

Using cameras in the outfield, the team would bang on a trashcan to signal what pitch was coming, the number of bangs on the trashcan meant what pitch was coming. It is directly against the rules and many believed it should have put an asterisk on the championship win.

2017 was the only season that it was proven to have seen the newly nicknamed ASS-tros or TRASH-stros cheat. However, many firmly believe they used a new system to cheat in the 2019 playoffs and every year since then.

Fans were already upset that a team had cheated to win the championship, but the league went soft on the team. Not a single player faced any repercussions from the scandal, only coaches and executives. It felt like the league turned a blind eye to the cheating under the ruse of doing something good for the game of baseball.

No matter how “clean” the 2022 World Series win was, fans were always going to be upset, as is the nature of the villains of the league winning the championship.

In the hours following the win, “Cheaters” has trended on Twitter with over 15,000 tweets.

Fans’ reactions include “Cheaters is gonna cheat. F**k the Astros!!!” and “The cheaters win again. The sports gods are not just.” These two reactions are commonplace among baseball fans, who would rather see anything other than an Astros win.

Even if a majority of the 2017 team have moved on to other teams, retired or have just left the organization, the culture and reputation of the Astros are just as poor as ever.

With the 2022 World Series MVP being a rookie shortstop in Jeremy Peña, who is replacing the star shortstop of the cheating era, he is still getting boos from opponents for the name on the front of his jersey.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this MLB season is that when the Houston Astros win, everyone loses.