SCOTTSDALE — Former Giants manager Bruce Bochy is proud of his three World Series rings and isn’t fond of how the Astros weren’t playing fair and square when they won their 2017 rings.

“It’s unfortunate,” Bochy said on The Chronicle’s “Giants Splash” podcast. “You know what’s really sad about this whole thing is, they won the World Series in ’17, but now that’s a hard ring to wear.

“It’s hard to say, ‘Hey I was a world champion in 2017,’ because now it’s been tainted. As much as they say it hasn’t been, it’s still tainted.”

Bochy, who broke into the majors with the 1978 Astros, said technology had advanced so far that a sign-stealing scandal such as Houston’s was almost inevitable.

“We were always on alert for any kind of whistling or noises,” Bochy said, “and the honest to God’s truth, two, three years ago ... I said it’s going to be a matter of time before someone has a buzzer or something on them.

“Because you look at where we were with technology, obviously any team was capable of doing that if they wanted to do it. Now, what we don’t know is, who else was doing it? But I can tell you, there were other teams that were doing some things or trying to do some things.”

The Astros benefited from a monitor behind their dugout that showed the catcher’s signs from a center-field camera, and trash cans were banged to relay signs to hitters.

Bochy is in favor of banning in-game technology for teams and allowing it only for pregame preparation. That includes players going to the video room (or even using tablets in the dugout) to watch their at-bats.

“Totally, totally. No question. Play the game,” Bochy said. “There were times, of course, with every club, guys would go back and look at their at-bats or whatever. I would take it away just to try to get the guys back to playing the games.

“Sometimes I just felt it was a distraction. You also have to go out and play defense. When you’re in there looking at video for five minutes, then you’ve got to hit the field. They’re coming out scrambling to find their glove and everything. How could the focus be where it needs to be?

“I would be so much for not allowing technology during a game.”

Bochy recalled being worried his rookie year with the Astros that the Cubs were stealing their signs. “We had to go through these really complicated signs because we thought they had binoculars in the outfield,” he said.

The Astros’ manager, AJ Hinch, and general manager, Jeff Luhnow, were suspended and fired, but Major League Baseball chose not to punish players, though former Houston bench coach Alex Cora (Boston) and former Houston designated hitter Carlos Beltran (Mets) lost their managerial jobs because of the scandal.

“Nobody knows the whole story,” Bochy said, “but it’s like the baseball gods are saying, ‘Wait a minute, you better slow down on this.’”

John Shea covers the Giants for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: jshea@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnSheaHey