Jose Altuve heckled with tattoo taunts while signing autographs

The tattoo-gate drama revolves around how Altuve appeared to tell teammates not to rip off his jersey following his pennant-clinching home run over the Yankees last October. The suspicion that gained some steam of late is that doing so would have blown the lid off how the Astros were wearing buzzers to somehow cheat.

Carlos Correa recently explained that Altuve had a tattoo in the works on his shoulder that didn’t look so great, a dubious claim that elicited mockery, which then in turn inspired the above taunts.

It’s certainly been a tough row to hoe thus far in camp for Altuve. He was lustily booed in his first spring training at-bat this week.

Adding injury to insult, Altuve was plunked — inadvertently, it seems — later in the game.

These latest indignities followed a television station in Los Angeles labeling Altuve as “Astros Cheater” in a chyron in footage of his apology presser a few weeks back.

In other words, buckle up, Altuve and the Astros. It’s going to be a long, long season.