Carlos Correa Says Jose Altuve Wants to Keep His Shirt on to Hide an Ugly Tattoo

Carlos Correa gave an extensive interview to The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal today. Correa took the opportunity to defend Jose Altuve's honor and make a case for the Astros earning the 2017 World Series despite cheating throughout the season. But mostly he just wanted to talk about how Altuve didn't do anything wrong. Well, maybe one thing. Via The Athletic:

"Nobody wants to talk about this, but I’m going to talk about this. José Altuve was the one guy that didn’t use the trash can. The few times that the trash can was banged was without his consent, and he would go inside the clubhouse and inside the dugout to whoever was banging the trash can and he would get pissed. He would get mad. He would say, “I don’t want this. I can’t hit like this. Don’t you do that to me.” He played the game clean."

Altuve is just one of many innocent bystanders who somehow never benefited from a season where the Astros cheated and won 101 regular season games and a World Series. And he apologized even though he didn't do anything wrong. Sounds like he's actually a great guy.

So how about the whole thing where he didn't want his shirt ripped off? Well, Correa actually added an excuse for Altuve and this one is incredible.

"Earlier in the year, he hit a walk-off at Minute Maid Park; I ripped off his shirt with Tony Kemp. 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.”"

The way Correa tells this story, he implies that Altuve's wife calls Altuve, "Altuve."

"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."

Can you imagine how bad this tattoo must look? By the way, ESPN and MLB should be dispatching someone to Altuve's house or hotel room or wherever RIGHT NOW to get a picture of this thing. And can you imagine the selection process that Altuve is going through right now if this is a lie? He would now be on the hook for a truly hideous tattoo that he would need to show the world.

"So, one, he didn’t want to take his shirt off because his wife had told my wife earlier in the year for me to not do that. So he was telling me not to do it. And, number two, he had an unfinished tattoo that looked kinda bad that he didn’t want people to see and people to talk about. That was the reason."

Imagine being a fit professional athlete who just hit a home run to send your team to the World Series and all you can think of is how mad your wife could potentially be after the celebration and hiding your body becuase you have a tattoo so ugly that people would make fun of you on the Internet. Is it possible Bill Buckner missed that ground ball in 1986 because he was worried about cyberbullying?

Anyway, here are some topless photographs of Jose Altuve on July 29, 2019. Nary an embarrassing piece of body art to be seen.

You know what's a great way to forget about fighting for home field advantage throughout the American League playoffs? Getting a bad tattoo.