Cheating Thread

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

On 6/9/2021 at 3:17 PM, David Dennison said:

Cheating is part of the culture of the sport. There will never not be cheating in Major League baseball.

Yeah, I'm aware, it's gotten out of control. The number of no hitters this season illustrates that point clearly.

[David Dennison 19138]

1 hour ago, Sbbruin said:

I love poking the Stros fans with the cheating scandal.

We love it when you cry. 

Again.

And again.

And again.

[Eskimohorn 5658]

Can Eskimohorn show us on the doll where the Astros touched him?

Lifetime fan. First autograph was from Bill Doran. Maybe have shock from when Denny Walling led the team in homers one year with 16 or something and Glenn Davis was the 2nd coming with 28 and seeing what they are now is too much. Thats a joke.

I didnt escalate this thread (one reference in OP) and I dont have the stamina to deal with the Homers.

The MLB cheating goes beyond Stros so this should probably be about the current news as MLB tries to cleanup another mess.

[ChickenSandwich 9860]

     Dp

Edited June 11, 2021 by ChickenSandwich

[ChickenSandwich 9860]

1 hour ago, Helobious said:

Lol. Forgot about the Astros Rudy complex. Houston was a cheating-enhanced juggernaut that entire season, dominating everybody and were wire to wire WS favorites. The Yankees were the scrappy underdogs that no one gave a chance. Wild card qualifying team and they still took the Astros to 7 games.

How do you explain your manager admitting to the exact same thing?

Why is it ok for the Yankees to cheat and steal signs?  
 

Is your argument simply because they weren’t as good at it?

[MaybeACoordinator 8350]

I have literally written a shortish history on real-time, tech-enhanced baseball cheating. Because it is unseemly to post links and I don't want to doxx myself, I will merely summarize here:

 

1876: In the inaugural season of National League baseball, the Hartford Dark Blues stood accused of posting a spy with binoculars in a shack suspended on a telegraph pole beyond the outfield wall with orders to signal Dark Blues batsmen when one of those newfangled curve balls was coming. Said a contemporary observer, "A lot of dope came out of that little office." 

The Dark Blues finished a respectable 47-21 that year, but that was not enough to save National League baseball in Hartford; the Dark Blues decamped to Brooklyn a year or two later, much to the chagrin of their number one fan: Mark Twain.

Interestingly, in the early days, observers called this practice "tipping the signs," placing the onus of blame on the team careless enough to allow the cracking of their code.

1900: Now we get really high-tech. The Philadelphia Phillies are credited with ushering baseball into the age of electricity.

In the first game of a September doubleheader in Philadelphia's Baker Bowl, Reds shortstop and team captain Tommy Corcoran suddenly emerged from his team's dugout in the third inning of game one, and in the words of a contemporary sports reporter, "walked over to the coach's box at third base in and began to scratch gravel in a way that made Petey Chiles look like a blacksmith." (I guess you had to be there to catch that reference.) 

According to that same report, Phillies "groundskeeper Schroeder" and a sergeant of the police force ran on the field in an vain attempt to halt the "Cincinnati generalissimo's" excavations, but too late -- he had already dug up a vault containing "an electric apparatus."

Reds coach Arlie Latham, a rule-stretcher (to put it mildly) himself, was among the first on the scene. 

As a third base coach, Latham's shenanigans -- waving his arms, running up and down the baseline willy-nilly, hurling profanities at the opposing pitcher and fielders -- were historic, literally: they ushered in the advent of the coach's box (to rein him in) and won him one of the best nicknames in baseball history: "The Freshest Man on Earth."

So anyway, Latham comes upon this little high-tech crypt and, according to a reporter at a major American daily newspaper, had this to say:

"Ha! Ha! What's this? An infernal machine to disrupt the noble National League, or is it a dastardly attempt on the life of my distinguished friend, Colonel John I. Rogers?" 

Apparently "infernal machine" was a reference to the use of mines in the Spanish-American War. I am not sure how Phillies owner Rogers tied into that, but there you go. 

Anyway, according to the same reporter, umpire Tim Hurst matched Latham's stentorian oration with one of his own. Nodding to the apparatus, he is alleged to have intoned:

"Back to the mines, men. Think on that eventful day in July when Admiral Dewey went into Manila Bay not giving a tinker's dam for all the mines concealed therein. Come on. Play ball, and blow the Colonel's mine." 

(Would that Baseball Twitter resounded with such eloquence.)

Said "colonel's mine" was really a buzzer connected to a wire that ran from the coach's box through the outfield to the Phillie clubhouse beyond the fence. There dwelled a Phillie spy armed with binoculars who would transmit each pitch to the third base coach's foot electronically with this crude telegraph, and the coach would then relay that information to the batter with coded exhortations. 

An unnamed third team had tipped off the Reds with their suspicions, it was later revealed. The Phillies, it was later noted, had introduced baseball to the age of Edison.

(Remainder spoilered for length. Bear in mind, I put all this together over three days' idle time at home; I could have dug up plenty more with access to more than what is easily accessible via Google.)

Spoiler

1909-1910: The Detroit Tigers suspected funny business on a trip to New York. A Detroit trainer scanned the outfield walls and thought he detected suspicious movements in the crossbar of the letter H in a large sign advertising hats. The Detroiter advanced on the sign and found a man inside letter H eating a sandwich. On his discovery, the man fled without a word, and the trainer discovered the lever by which this mole had manipulated the H. The Tigers reported their findings to the league office. 

And as would prove to be usual over the next century, the Yankees skated. League president Ban Johnson subjected the Yankees to a "lengthy investigation" and publicly cleared them, fearful that this Yankee perfidy would bring shame and bad press on the game. Privately, he issued them a warning, and yet the reports of Yankee sign stealing continued through the 1910 season. While those reports did lead to the resignation of their manager,  nothing came down from the league office. 

Decades later, the Yankee's villainous first baseman Hal Chase confirmed that the "Black Hand" scheme was real: the H was maneuvered one of three ways to denote curves, fastballs, and spitballs.

Generalized 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s:  Rogers Hornsby was a Hall of Fame second baseman whose playing career spanned four teams and 23 seasons, 12 of them as a player manager. He also managed some in the 1950s, so in all, Hornsby spent some or all of five decades in the bigs. 

Here is what he had to say about off-field sign-stealing in his near half-century of baseball: "Every team with a scoreboard in center field has a spy inside at one time or another." 

1940: In his posthumously-published 1989 autobiography, Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life, the Tigers slugger openly confessed to high-tech cheating over the course of two decades of his baseball career, which extended to front office duties after his playing days were over.

His confessions stretched back to 1940. In one of the dog days of that summer, pitcher Tommy Bridges, who had pitched the previous day, and injured third basemen Pinky Higgins chose to sit in the Briggs Stadium upper deck bleachers instead of the dugout. (Evidently a not-unheard of practice in those days.) 

Briggs was showing his hunting buddy Higgins his new toy, a hunting rifle with a telescopic sight. Briggs pointed it at home plate and discovered that he could read the catcher's signals perfectly. (Evidently taking rifles into the stands of baseball stadiums and pointing them at home plate was also a not unheard-of practice in those days.) 

Greenberg picks up the tale:

Quote

The next day we decided to test his (Bridges) ability to read the pitches and sure enough he sat up in the stands with Pinky. When the pitch was signaled for a fastball or a curveball, they had arranged a predetermined signal to relay it to the batter. It didn’t have to go to the coaches or the bench; it went directly to the batter. Strangely enough, you could look right over the shoulder of the pitcher and look out there in the stands and see the signal.

And so the Tigers, as an organization, acted: they called up a minor league manager whose sole job was to sit in the stands with a pair of binoculars, decode the signs, and relay them to the Tigers. Even when the stadium was packed, Greenberg said, his teammates could find their spy and see his signal. (Two players abstained: Hall of Fame second baseman Charlie Gehringer and Gerald Walker.)

Greenberg said that he and his fellow slugger Rudy York benefited the most from the scheme:

Quote

I think the record will bear it out. As I remember, between the two of us we hit one or two home runs for seventeen consecutive days during the month of September. Either Rudy would hit one, or I would hit one, or sometimes we would each hit two. I think it was picking up those signs that were instrumental in enabling us to win that 1940 pennant.

Well, nobody spins a tale like an old baseball player, unless it's a fisherman talking about the big one that got away. Luckily, thanks to the miracle of the Internet, you can verify these kinds of preposterous stories, so that is exactly what I did.

And you know what? Greenberg was full of it. 

Actually, Greenberg and/or York's streak lasted only 15 days. However, that included two doubleheaders, so it did extend for 17 games. (Start on September 4 and work down.)

The Tigers won the AL pennant that year, edging out the Indians by a game and the Yankees by two. 

And for the record, Greenberg believed those Yankees were also cheating.

Quote

"It’s been rumored that the Yankees were stealing signs from their centerfield scoreboard for years. I know that they had a lot of success against [Cleveland Hall of Fame pitcher] Bob Feller. A lot of the hitters who didn’t figure to hit Feller had good records against him, and I’m sure they were helped by knowing what was being pitched to them.”

 

1948: After a hot start propelled to a perch atop the American League that lasted through the All-Star break, the long-suffering Cleveland Indians seemed to be losing their chance at their first pennant since their only one, in 1920. An August swoon saw them fall to third place. 

What to do? 

If you were Bob Feller, fellow Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon, and two Cleveland groundskeepers, you set up an observation post in the center field scoreboard, enlisted the enthusiastic support of your player-manager (Hall of Fame shortstop Lou Boudreau), and let the batters know to look for an arm sticking out of a certain slot in the scoreboard if they want to know what pitch is coming. 

That's exactly what they did, and the Indians went 19-5 over their last 24 games and went on to defeat the Boston Braves for the championship. 

Word of this scandal got out in real time -- at one point, Red Sox manager Joe McCarthy pointedly glared at the scoreboard after Feller had signaled for an Indian batsman -- Hall of Famer Joe Gordon --  to swing away on a 3-0 count. Gordon jumped on the pitch and belted a grand slam. 

All of America turned against the villainous Indians. Had their been a "baseball Twitter" in those days, it would have united as one and called the Tribe's trophy tainted. Instead of hanging their heads in shame, the Indians leaned into their role as the Heels of Lake Erie, mocking and taunting their opponents as whiners. 

In 1950, Red Sox manager Steve O'Neill was still harping on about it, and once more laid into the cheatin' Indians in the public prints. 

The Indians responded by sending him a gift bag that included a pair of toy binoculars.

1951: Using much the same tactics as the Indians, Bobby Thomson and the New York Giants' pennant-clinching "Shot Heard Round the World" was abetted by scoreboard spies. 

Rumors about those Giants swirled in 1951 and for decades more, growing quieter with time. Fifty years later, as those Giants edged toward the Great Polo Grounds Beyond, a number of them unburdened themselves of the truth to Wall Street Journal reporter Joshua Prager in 2001. 

As with Hank Greenberg, who admitted to a multi-decade career's worth of cheating only in an autobiography published after his death, eternity has a way of teasing out truth.

1955: A veritable Who's Who of Sign Stealers pops up in a ridiculous fracas involving baseball espionage and surplus US Army materiel. The story begins in Cleveland where Lou Boudreau's Kansas City A's had just dropped a doubleheader to Boudreau's former team. 

It's hard to con a con, as Boudreau came very near to proving in real time. 

Acting on suspicions of scoreboard sign-stealing, Boudreau had his coaches his investigate "Feller's Roost" and his other old stomping grounds up there thoroughly. 

While they found nothing exactly on those lines, they did come up with some promising intel: for some reason there were a few unused army trucks and jeeps stored on a grassy rise beyond centerfield, and in one of those jeeps was a telescope, and behind that telescope was a Cleveland reliever who kept that telescope trained on home plate during Indian at bats. 

Ah-ha! It all became clear to Boudreau at once. This reliever, Boudreau snarled to bemused league officials, relayed pitch information to a second pitcher, who crossed or uncrossed his legs to denote fastballs and curves. Boudreau demanded the removal of the jeep and the telescope. 

While the league officials deemed Boudreau paranoid, and probably believed, in any event, that all of this was pretty rich coming from one of the architects of the Indians tainted pennant of seven short years past, they heard him out and took his accusations to the Indians front office for an accounting.

And the Indians front office was was by then led by...

Hank Greenberg, he of the monster, sign-stealing-fed, pennant-clinching Detroit Tiger September of 1940.

"Simply preposterous," Greenberg laughed. Yeah, yeah, he agreed with the chuckling AL investigators. That Lou Boudreau is a raving paranoiac. 

"We are not employing the Army Reserve Corps" concluded a chortling Greenberg. 

Haha. 

Except they were. They so totally were.

Eight years later, Al Lopez, manager of the '55 Indians, came forth with the truth: Boudreau's preposterous and paranoid ravings were 100 percent factual in every last detail. 

But let's flash back to 1955. A few months after the Cleveland incident, Boudreau (was Lou short for Lucifer?) the victim found himself back in his old as villain: his A's stood accused of availing themselves of a surveyor's telescope from a construction crew at the Kansas City ballpark and installing it in center field.  

1959: Chicago White Sox win the American League Pennant with aid from beyond the field. "We stole the signs from the center field scoreboard," flatly stated our old friend Hank Greenberg, who by then moved on from the Detroit and Cleveland organizations. 

1973: After the lowly Milwaukee Brewers batsmen took his Texas Rangers pitchers to the woodshed two nights in a row, Rangers manager Whitey Herzog believed there was funny business afoot. After a short investigation by his deputy, coach Jackie Moore, Herzog revealed his findings. 

Out in the outfield, there were two men: one with a pair of binoculars, and the other in lederhosen and other folkloric German attire. This of course, was Bernie Brewer, Milwaukee's mascot, famous for sliding into a pretend vat of beer with every Brewer long ball. Herr Bernie, Herzog reported, would received signal intel from the man with the binocs, and then reveal it to Milwaukee batsmen via a system involving hand-clapping and the donning and taking off of gloves. 

Baseball espionage archfiend Milt Mason, alias "Bernie Brewer"

After heading north to Kansas City, Herzog went on to accuse both the 1976 A's and Yankees of stealing signs with binoculars and relaying the info with walkie-talkies. Nothing has come out of Herzog's accusations. 

Yet. But if we believe Herzog's accusations, and there are very good reasons to do so, then the Yankees' 1976 pennant is yet another tainted flag. 

1980s: Tony LaRussa's Chicago White Sox had a flunkie in the clubhouse watching the game on TV, affording said employee a clear view of the catcher's signs on every pitch. He also had a toggle switch connected to a puny 25-watt light bulb on the scoreboard, and that seemingly faulty bulb tipped Chisox batters to expect fastballs or breaking stuff on every pitch. 

2010: 110 years after pushing the high-tech cheating envelope, the Phillies got popped again, this time resorting to cliched old-school methods: binoculars in the bullpen. 

And then in 2017, you had the Astros, Red Sox and Yankees. Numerous league sources have said that the practice is far more widespread than is generally known, and certainly more widespread than commissioner Rob Manfred wants you to know. 

Historians of baseball cheating have uncovered so much they tend to get a little tired of writing about it, as they all generally adhere to the same general blueprint and vary only in small details. 

Derek Zumsteg, author of The Cheater's Guide to Baseball, certainly succumbed to a certain ennui with his subject matter:

Quote

[It's all] variations on a theme, a Choose Your Own Adventure of cheating. A [hired spy / scrub player / coach / low man on the organizational totem pole] is placed [in the scoreboard / in a nearby apartment with a view of the field / in the stands / on top of the fence] and alerts the next batter to the next pitch using [ a mirror / the way they sat / an electronic device / opening or closing a hole in the manually-operated out-of-town scoreboard]...

Add to that cameras, iPads, and trash cans and you have the modern-day variant the Astros and Red Sox are being pilloried for.   

Perhaps as a sort of bizarro cautionary tale, Zumsteg brings in the tale of Al Worthington, baseball's lone Honest Man. 

A devout Christian from Alabama, who had been born-again at a 1958 Billy Graham revival and would go on to coach baseball at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, Worthington was dismayed enough by the binocular-aided sign-stealing of his own 1959 San Francisco Giants that he just couldn't take it anymore. 

If they would just trust Jesus Christ, he told manager Bill Rigney, "they wouldn't need to lie or cheat in this world," and added that he would quit the team if they continued. 

Rigney said years later that he called off the scheme. Maybe he did or maybe he didn't, but the fact is the Giants collapsed in the final week of the season and lost the pennant to the hated Dodgers, who no-hit the Giants in one game of a vital three-game sweep of their California archrivals.  

Perhaps for that very reason, in 1960 the Giants shipped their goody-two-shoes malcontent off to the Red Sox, who handed him off to the White Sox within weeks. 

There Worthington found himself working in what for him must have been something akin to the fires of Mordor: a Hank Greenberg-run organization where he was managed on the field by Al Lopez, the field general who commanded the Cleveland Indian army surplus caper that made a snarling madman out of Lou Boudreau. 

Though Greenberg tried to sell Worthington on his situational baseball ethics, this was simply not an arrangement built to last. Worthington and his Lord and Savior weren't having it. He simply quit the team mid-season, and then wandered the baseball wilderness in the minor leagues for three long years. 

“We tried to sell him,” GM Greenberg later said, “but the word was out that he was some sort of cuckoo.”

The Reds finally salvaged his big league career in 1963 and traded him to the Twins in 1965, where he finally found a home as one of baseball's top relievers for a few years. "But the biggest save I ever had was myself," he told a reporter.  (He wasn't always such a cornball -- he apparently bore it in good humor when his Reds teammates gave him a pair of binoculars at a 1964 team party.)

Some sort of cuckoo. That's the label you got in the early 1960s if you didn't go along to get along in the pervasive atmosphere of cheating then rampant in the land. You have to suspect that all of baseball knew the real deal -- that Worthington was simply too honest to cheat, and thereby, by that very virtue, a clubhouse cancer. 

And I refuse to believe that anything's changed since then, as the decade-by-decade timeline above attests. There are the Rules, and then there is the Code, and then there is the stuff beyond that everyone does themselves but pretends to be outraged about when it is done unto them. Witness the many hats of Lou Boudreau and Hank Greenberg, Hall of Famers both.  As was Al Lopez. And Bob Feller. And Tony LaRussa. And Bob Lemon, and numerous players from the 1976 A's and Yankees, and the 1951 Giants.

Mike Fiers might soon find out that the consequences of the conscience he has decided to retroactively apply won't be universal acclaim and enhanced demand on the open market.

That's may not be God's honest truth, but it is the truth of imperfect man. The commissioner's office has known of these shenanigans for more than a century now and only takes action when it is forced to, and now technology has enabled both new ways to cheat and new ways to detect cheating. It is both easier than ever to break the rules and for opposing teams or even fans to expose that chicanery.

As the Philadelphia reporter summed up the "infernal device" brouhaha of 1900: This may be honest base ball, but the general public has nothing but contempt for people who play with marked cards.

Yep, but there is a contradiction inherent in that statement. Using marked cards is honest base ball, because everybody else really is doing it. And when everybody is playing with marked cards, who can be said to have the upper hand? 

It's just another layer of the game. The early ballplayers had it right when they said signs weren't stolen so much as they were tipped. Codes and code-breaking. 

Or to put it as simply as possible, if you are playing high-stakes poker against an opponent who waves his or her hand around with abandon, are you going to shield your eyes to keep it fair or take advantage of the gift your opponent has given you? 

Oh, you're gonna look away, huh? Out of all the pots I rake in, I'll be sure to save you your busfare to the Al Worthington Christian Flophouse, home of the cuckoo nice guys.

And yes, baseball teams that don't protect their signs or change them as often as necessary are either lazy or foolish. That's all there is to it. And baseball doesn't want you to know that truth because it doesn't think you can handle it. Time and time again they've poo-poo'd well-founded claims of rule-bending and conducted sham investigations in order to protect what they say is the integrity of the game.

Cheating is part of the integrity of the game.

That's the truth. It may not be God's honest truth, but it's the truth imperfect humans live with on this sinful planet.

Learn to love baseball as it is, not as you and Al Worthington wish it to be, because it is what it was in 1870, and it remained so in 2017, and it will remain that way in 2070.

 

[wood 11637]

On 6/9/2021 at 2:20 PM, Droopy said:

Not saying you don't know this or deny it.

It's sports. Every sport is a big business. Even small obscure sports that nobody goes to see has cheating in it.  You add that mentality to a billion dollar business and you HAVE to cheat. At least if you want to compete.

It's always so funny to me, in a sport that is America's past time, that people still get upset when a player or manager is caught cheating. Shit, the term "inside baseball" is used to define acceptable levels of cheating. The fact that Signs have to be used at all or that everybody covers their mouth when discussing the next pitch/play/strategy is another sign that cheating is prevalent. 

Baseball is a great game, but it's funny to hear people talk about keeping the sport free of cheating maintaining a level standard. The fields aren't even all the same. Just about all of them are different shapes and sizes. A homerun in this park is only a double in that one or a passed ball is a sure run here but in another town it's too close to home plate and the ball bounces back to the catcher too quickly to score. Some pitching mounds are wider than others. It's a crooked sport. Always has been, always will be.

 

...and for someone that works with attorneys all day, the answer above is...technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.

100% agree that cheating - doctoring baseballs, bats, stealing signs and relaying them to hitters using technology - all that shit is part of the sport. It's cute the way people act like the latest guy to go under the microscope is the 'bad guy' in a league full of 'good guys', or the team that took the fall for multiple teams scamming signs is the 'cheater team' in a league of 'honest teams' that's seen frequent technological sign stealing scandals for well over 100 years lol.

I disagree re: the quirks of the different ballparks making it 'crooked' though. IMHO that variation is one of the best things about baseball.

[petscii 1190]

26 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

I didnt escalate this thread (one reference in OP) and I dont have the stamina to deal with the Homers.

 

I don't know but I've been told, Eskimohorn is mighty cold.

Sorry, I've been sitting on that for over two years...  

[wood 11637]

On 6/9/2021 at 3:25 PM, UTPhil2006 said:

Can we open the sealed Yankees letter yet?

Este. Wake me when that shit happens. Oh wait, it's the Yankees, that'll be in like eleventy bazillion years. Fuck it. Wake me anyway.

[wood 11637]

23 hours ago, Eskimohorn said:

MLB’s crackdown on foreign substances correlates with the league’s study into enhancing the action and pace of the game. The big problem is power pitching and power hitting. Just about every team has 4-5 Nolan Ryan’s and 4-5 Reggie Jackson’s. Pitchers are getting tons of K’s and hitters are working counts and going for homers.

In addition to more relievers and specialists, advanced analytics are steering teams to avoid contact hitting philosophies, advancing runners, and stealing bases. We have less extra base hits and close plays. Overall, less exciting baseball in totality and longer games.

Cheating scandals can also hurt the sport. Get enough bullshit and it can hurt the integrity of the sport. Astros win the World Series not just by spotting a pitcher’s tell, but by illegal use of technology and signaling to the tune of laying off of Clayton Kershaw’s breaking and off-speed stuff on 50 of 51 pitches.

The everybody does it excuse doesn’t hold water.

But teams have been doing it repeatedly for over 100 years, with technology, and with MLB knowing about most of them and still doing little to nothing about them. Hell, they were doing it in the 'shot heard round the world game' with Bobby Thompson's biggest HR.

Edited June 11, 2021 by wood

[wood 11637]

23 hours ago, Eskimohorn said:

Then there’s no reason for you to further comment on this thread. The depth of your analysis is noted for the record.

 

9 hours ago, Helobious said:

Astros fans are the fucking worst. So easily offended over fucking everything and they have no comprehension or understanding of baseball whatsoever. All this talk about cheating being ingrained in the history of baseball even though 95% of you started watching baseball in 2015. You’re the aggy of the MLB and your never ending woe-is-me victimhood mentality embodies everything wrong with this country today. Your team cheated to win a title, your star QB is a rapist, and none of your sports teams are winning a title again. So stay in your hurricane magnet concrete swampland shithole of a city and shut the fuck up. /rant 

 

9 hours ago, UTPhil2006 said:

The irony is so rich it's gotta be fattening 

LOL. Yep. I'd include that first post I quoted above in that as well.

[wood 11637]

13 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

It really is an intelligence test to see what gets all hot and bothered about the Astros and singles them out for venom vs who doesn’t. 

Absolutely correct. Told my kid basically the same thing the other day. It's like a dipshit detector that homes in on the idiots in the stands, on message boards, or in the media who don't know jack shit about the game & its history, either recent or extended ... or the assholes homers who know better but are just pushing an agenda..

Edited June 11, 2021 by wood

[Guadaloopy 11077]

2 hours ago, Helobious said:

…wire to wire WS favorites…

Revisionist history.  Astros were contenders all season, but never the favorites.  They didn’t get serious consideration as top contenders until they got Verlander.   They finished with the second best record in the AL and the third best in MLB behind the Dodgers and Indians.  The Dodgers were the favorites throughout the season and the playoffs until the second inning of Game 7.  

[elfenix 34396]

Someone finally brought a gun to a gun fight and Yankees fan is salty. Cry! More!

[MaybeACoordinator 8350]

Before this scandal broke, while we were watching the 2019 ALCS, said something like whenever teams like the Yankees don't win, they find some way to change the rules or make it seem like the other team cheated somehow, because these teams and their fans just assume their winning championships is the natural order of things, and when they don't, something is wrong with the universe. He said that in reaction to some bullshit call that went the Yankees way or something like that...Little did we know then how far the Yankees and the Dodgers and MLB would take this shit. 

[NorthLoop 14305]

Fuck I wish the Rangers would cheat more

[wood 11637]

2 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

I have literally written a shortish history on real-time, tech-enhanced baseball cheating. Because it is unseemly to post links and I don't want to doxx myself, I will merely summarize here:

Nicely done. I haven't written a history of it like you have, but I posted an article a while back summarizing many of the sign-stealing & relaying scandals going back 120 years. It only covers sign-stealing & not any other form of cheating, but like you, I had to spoiler tag it because it's so.fucking.long. Between your history and this article, the information is out there, and it should be a bannable offense for anyone to continue with the utterly intellectually dishonest drivel fuckery that the Astros stole signs 'in an unprecedented way', more extensively than anyone else, were the only ones doing it, etc, etc. 

Some of you assholes need to read it and learn something about the game you claim to love. It's pretty got-damn interesting no matter how you look at it, even just from a fan or baseball historian perspective.. Or don't read it, & just keep being know-nothing, blissfully ignorant, reactionary dipshits.

The author lists 24 documented cheating systems since 1899, by the Phillies, Highlanders, A's (3x), Indians (3x), Cubs (2x), Giants (2x), White Sox (4x), Yankees (2x), Red Sox, Braves, Reds, Brewers, Mets, and Astros. He notes the Red Sox fine for using technology to steal signs in 2017, but doesn't list the corresponding cheating scandal or the Yankees', or the Dodgers who were obviously doing it too .... so the Yankees and Red Sox totals above don't include those incidents.

Some people should learn a little about the game and stop being reactionary little bitches, putting their supremely self-assured ignorance & stupidity on display for the world to see.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/01/23/sign-stealing-history-astros-red-sox

Spoiler

Before there was Mike Fiers there were whistleblowers named Al Worthington, Bob Shaw and Jay Hook—all of them pitchers. Before there was a trash can there were curtains, buzzers, weathervanes, peach nectar cans, scorecards and mascots.

Throughout baseball history players have stolen signs through illicit means and found creative ways to signal them to hitters. It only took 120 years for someone to actually do something about it.

...

In the quick unfolding of the Houston scandal today it’s important to remember just how long and colorful is the “before” period. Technology changed how cheating could be accomplished, but the drive to “gain an edge” is engrained in the game.

...

Here are the known systematic cheating scandals—not the ones that involve picking up signs from second base or deciphering a “tell” from the pitcher, but systems that used devices from outside the field of play. I included only those scandals that were confirmed or made known by formal complaint, which excludes the many others in which teams were suspected of stealing signs.

After the list is a second list of the safeguards baseball put in place to deal with such cheating. That list is much shorter.

1899-1900 Phillies

A backup catcher named Morgan Murphy watched games at Baker Bowl in an “observatory” beyond the centerfield wall, where he stole signs with binoculars. Murphy rigged an underground wire from his perch to the third-base coaching box, where Bull Childs kept his foot above a junction box that would signal the pitch by buzzing once or twice. The Reds discovered and uprooted the system after they noticed Childs was not moving his right foot—not even when that portion of the coaching box included a puddle from rain. The Phillies “explained” the wire as something left behind by a traveling circus that had played at the ballpark. The club was not disciplined.

Murphy also used a system in which he signaled the pitches to hitters with curtains attached to his perch’s awning. Murphy used a similar system on the road by using handkerchiefs or a rolled-up newspaper from rooftops, buildings or bleachers. On Sept. 26, 1900, the Brooklyn Superbas caught him signaling from the top floor of a flathouse beyond the centerfield fence at Washington Park in Brooklyn.

Murphy’s entire existence on the roster seemed due to his sign-stealing talents. From 1899-1901 he played in only 20 games. When the Phillies sent him to the minors in 1901, newspapers referred to him as “chief of the buzzer department.”

1909 Highlanders

Gene McCann, a former player, was stationed behind the centerfield fence and peered through a hole with binoculars. He would tip off the scoreboard operator, who would tip vertical the horizontal bar in the “H” in Highlanders for a fastball. One day in September a trainer from the Tigers surprised McCann during a game, overpowering him and seizing the binoculars.

1910-14 Athletics

Substitute outfielder Danny Murphy, armed with binoculars, stood next to a weathervane on a rooftop in Philadelphia. He spun the weathervane north for a curveball and south for a fastball. The system worked well, except for when a gust of wind spun the weathervane in another direction.

1948 Indians

Braves pitcher Johnny Sain charged the Indians with putting a spy in the scoreboard with binoculars. The man would ring a buzzer in the dugout to signal the pitch. Later reports said Cleveland pitchers Bob Feller and Bob Lemon used a telescope obtained from a World War II navy ship. They called out pitches to a groundskeeper, who signaled hitters through an opening in the scoreboard or from a seated position in the bleachers.

1948 Cubs

Gene Mauch and Peanuts Lowry of the Cubs watched a game against the Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York with binoculars from the centerfield clubhouse. When they saw a sign for a fastball they put a bright peach nectar can in the window. For a curve, they took it down.

1951 Giants

The team stole signs from its centerfield clubhouse at the Polo Grounds with the use of a sophisticated 35-millimeter Wollensak telescope. An electrician rigged the phones between the clubhouse and bullpen, which was located in fair territory in right-centerfield 440 feet from home plate. One buzz meant fastball; two buzzes meant an off-speed pitch. Third-base coach Herman Franks, a former catcher, moved to the bullpen to decode the signs (which is why manager Leo Durocher came to coach third base in the second half of the season). Sal Yvars, a backup catcher stationed in the bullpen, would hold a baseball to signal fastball. To indicate an off-speed pitch he would toss the ball in the air.

Word about the system first surfaced in a report from an anonymous player in 1962.

1954-56 White Sox

Manager Marty Marion said he put a coach, Del Wilber, in the centerfield scoreboard with binoculars. He said Wilber relayed the sign for a fastball to the hitter by moving the “10” in the scoreboard next to Sherm Lollar’s name. Orioles manager Paul Richards said in 1956, “They did it last year and they’re doing it now through a high-powered telescope through a little hole in the scoreboard.”

1955 Athletics

The A’s used a surveyor’s telescope to steal signs from their bullpen. When an off-speed pitch was called, an A’s reliever would place a towel on the bullpen ledge. No towel signaled a fastball to the hitter.

1959 Yankees and Red Sox

The first charge that teams used TV cameras to steal signs derived from a Yankees-Red Sox game (what else?). It was the eighth NBC telecast using the newly installed centerfield camera. Because of the controversy, and at the request of commissioner Ford Frick, NBC said it would discontinue use of the centerfield camera.

1959 Giants

The Giants used a spy in the scoreboard to steal signs. Giants pitcher Al Worthington, a deeply religious man, told manager Bill Rigney he could not abide such cheating and asked for a trade. The Giants traded him to the White Sox.

1960 White Sox

Worthington quit his next team because that team was cheating, too. He quit in August because the White Sox stole signs from the centerfield scoreboard at Comiskey Park.

Pitcher Bob Shaw, after being traded by the White Sox to the Athletics in 1961, described the scheme: "They used a tube with a light in it, and somebody would sit in the scoreboard … If the light went on it was a fastball, if it didn’t it was a curve."

1960 Braves

Two Braves starting pitchers, Joey Jay and Bob Buhl, were discovered sitting in the bleachers at Wrigley Field and waving white scorecards to hitters to tell them what pitch was coming.

1961 Reds

According to Cincinnati pitcher Jay Hook, his team put a scout, a former pitcher named Brooks Lawrence, in the centerfield scoreboard at Crosley Field to steal signs and relay them to the dugout via telephone. Hook made his comments after joining the Mets in 1962.

Presaging Fiers, Hook said then, “I didn’t say anything about it, but now I’m on the Mets and I want to protect the Mets against that sort of thing. I think it’s wrong.

“The commissioner [Ford Frick] should see that a ruling is put in against it, and enforce it. A $10,000 fine would be a good idea.”

1961 Cubs

Braves manager Birdie Tebbetts filed a protest, accusing the Cubs of using binoculars from the bleachers and scoreboard at Wrigley Field. After the Braves traded for pitcher Jack Curtis from the Cubs, Curtis “confirmed the charges,” Tebbetts said.

Said Mets coach Solly Hemus then about rampant sign-stealing, “That’s the main reason games take so long to play these days. Switching signs, and conferences between catcher and pitcher add 20 minutes to a game.”

1971 Indians

White Sox manager Chuck Tanner charged the Indians stole signs from the scoreboard. He told reporters the White Sox “are not going to play in the Cleveland ballpark again until either the commissioner or American League president takes a look at that scoreboard.”

1973 Brewers

Rangers manager Whitey Herzog accused Bernie Brewer, the Milwaukee Brewers mascot, of partaking in a sign stealing scheme from his chalet in the outfield. According to Herzog, a man next to Bernie Brewer stole signs with binoculars. Bernie Brewer, dressed in Bavarian garb, would signal a breaking pitch to the batter by clapping furiously with his white gloves. He took off the gloves when the Rangers batted. Herzog complained to umpire Tom Haller, who chased away the man with binoculars and told Bernie Brewer to keep his gloves off.

In thinking about creating a similar home-field advantage in Texas, Herzog said, “Maybe we should put a Texas Ranger or somebody out there and shoot a gun or something when a curveball is coming.”

1976 Athletics

Herzog, then manager of the Royals, complained the A’s were stealing signs from their bullpen with the help of binoculars. Herzog led the umpiring crew out to the bullpen, where they found binoculars under a towel.

1976 Yankees

Manfred found in his research that this incident stood as the most recent penalty related to sign-stealing—though not directly.

Yankees scout Clyde King served as the team’s “eye in the sky” to position defenders during the postseason. King communicated with coach Gene Michael in the dugout via walkie-talkies. Manager Billy Martin claimed the commissioner’s office approved the system, but the Reds protested during World Series Game 1 when King and two other New York scouts, Tebbetts and Karl Kuehl, set up their operation in a CBS radio booth equipped with a TV monitor—not in the stands.

The Reds publicity director, Jim Ferguson, told them the commissioner wanted them to stop for fear they were stealing the signals of catcher Johnny Bench off the monitor and relaying them to the dugout. He ejected them from the booth.

After the game the commissioner’s office said Martin “did not precisely follow instructions,” which called for King to use a seat in the upper deck.

“We didn’t use the walkie-talkies for anything else but what we got permission to use them for,” an incensed Martin said after Game 1. “Whoever said anything else is a plain liar.”

Kuhn fined Martin $1,000—not for stealing signs, but for his comments.

1980s White Sox

The White Sox placed a 25-watt refrigerator bulb in the scoreboard at Comiskey Park. A White Sox staffer would sit in the manager’s office, watch the TV broadcast and signal pitches with a toggle switch connected to the light.

1990 White Sox

The Orioles filed a complaint that Joe Nossek, the White Sox’s “eye in the sky” used to position defenders, sat facing their dugout and accused him of stealing signs. The claim led to a rule against such surveillance.

1997 Mets

The Philadelphia Phillies complained to the league office that the Mets were using video cameras trained on opposing third-base coaches, pitchers and dugouts to steal signs. The league told the Mets to be sure the cameras were trained only on batters and pitchers.

1999 Indians

Red Sox manager Jimy Williams presented evidence to umpire Tim Welke that the Indians used a camera atop the centerfield wall to steal signs. Welke ordered the Indians to cover the camera. (The Red Sox claimed the signs were transmitted to the hitter by whistling from the dugout.) Cleveland said the camera was used to evaluate player performance.

It was not the first time Boston accused the Indians of cheating. In the 1995 ALDS, Boston manager Kevin Kennedy made the same accusation regarding the camera that Williams did.

2010 Phillies

The Rockies accused the Phillies of stealing signs after Philadelphia bullpen coach Mick Billmeyer was shown on camera using binoculars when the Rockies were batting. The Phillies denied the binoculars were used to steal signs.

2017-18 Astros

Houston stole signs with multiple systems, all based off video replay monitors and its video room. Players, Cora (then the bench coach) and support personnel all played active roles. The Astros alerted hitters to what was coming by banging on a trash can with a bat or massage gun, or by whistling, clapping or shouting.

 

MLB Responses to Cheating
Until last week, no known punishment existed that related directly to stealing signs. Here are the few instances when MLB actually took an official position against such behavior.

1910

American League president Ban Johnson offered a $500 reward for any player who presented evidence regarding sign stealing. He threatened to “blacklist forever” any player proven to have stolen signs.

1961

Responding to a wave of sign-stealing reports, National League president Warren Giles instituted the first official rule against stealing signs with devices. He warned that teams would be subject to forfeiting any wins gained using such a device.

2000

MLB executive Sandy Alderson sent a memo to all clubs that warned, “No club shall use electronic equipment, including walkie-talkies and cellular telephones, to communicate to or with any on-field personnel, including those in the dugout, bullpen field and—during the game—the clubhouse. Such equipment may not be used for the purpose of stealing signs or conveying information designed to give a club an advantage.”

2017

In fining the Boston Red Sox for misusing technology to steal signs, Manfred on Sept. 15 issued a reminder of the 2000 regulations against such cheating. He added a warning about future penalties: “All 30 clubs have been notified that future violations of this type will be subject to more serious sanctions, including the possible loss of draft picks.”

2018

On March 27, Manfred doubled down on his warning about the misuse of technology. In a three-page memo to club officials, he wrote: “Electronic equipment, including game feeds in the club replay room and/or video room, may never be used during a game for the purpose of stealing the opposing team’s signs.”

In the same paragraph, the memo stated in boldface type, “To be clear, the use of any equipment in the clubhouse or in the club’s replay or video rooms to decode opposing club’s signs during the game violates this regulation.”

 

Edited June 11, 2021 by wood

[wood 11637]

53 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Before this scandal broke, while we were watching the 2019 ALCS, said something like whenever teams like the Yankees don't win, they find some way to change the rules or make it seem like the other team cheated somehow, because these teams and their fans just assume their winning championships is the natural order of things, and when they don't, something is wrong with the universe. He said that in reaction to some bullshit call that went the Yankees way or something like that...Little did we know then how far the Yankees and the Dodgers and MLB would take this shit. 

Who said it?

[MaybeACoordinator 8350]

4 minutes ago, wood said:

Nicely done. I haven't written a history of it like you have, but I posted an article a while back summarizing many of the sign-stealing & relaying scandals going back 120 years. It only covers sign-stealing & not any other form of cheating, but like you, I had to spoiler tag it because it's so.fucking.long. Between your history and this article, the information is out there, and anyone continuing with the utterly intellectually dishonest drivel fuckery that the Astros stole signs 'in an unprecedented way', more extensively than anyone else, were the only ones doing it, etc, etc, should be a bannable offense. 

Some of you assholes need to read it and learn something about the game you claim to love. It's pretty got-damn interesting no matter how you look at it, even just from a fan or baseball historian perspective.. Or don't read it, & just keep being a know-nothing, blissfully ignorant, reactionary dipshit.

The author lists 24 documented cheating systems since 1899, by the Phillies, Highlanders, A's (3x), Indians (3x), Cubs (2x), Giants (2x), White Sox (4x), Yankees (2x), Red Sox, Braves, Reds, Brewers, Mets, and Astros. He notes the Red Sox fine for using technology to steal signs in 2017, but doesn't list the corresponding cheating scandal or the Yankees', or the Dodgers who were obviously doing it too .... so the Yankees and Red Sox totals above don't include those incidents.

Some people should learn a little about the game and stop being reactionary little bitches, putting their supremely self-assured ignorance & stupidity on display for the world to see.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/01/23/sign-stealing-history-astros-red-sox

  Reveal hidden contents

Before there was Mike Fiers there were whistleblowers named Al Worthington, Bob Shaw and Jay Hook—all of them pitchers. Before there was a trash can there were curtains, buzzers, weathervanes, peach nectar cans, scorecards and mascots.

Throughout baseball history players have stolen signs through illicit means and found creative ways to signal them to hitters. It only took 120 years for someone to actually do something about it.

...

In the quick unfolding of the Houston scandal today it’s important to remember just how long and colorful is the “before” period. Technology changed how cheating could be accomplished, but the drive to “gain an edge” is engrained in the game.

...

Here are the known systematic cheating scandals—not the ones that involve picking up signs from second base or deciphering a “tell” from the pitcher, but systems that used devices from outside the field of play. I included only those scandals that were confirmed or made known by formal complaint, which excludes the many others in which teams were suspected of stealing signs.

After the list is a second list of the safeguards baseball put in place to deal with such cheating. That list is much shorter.

1899-1900 Phillies

A backup catcher named Morgan Murphy watched games at Baker Bowl in an “observatory” beyond the centerfield wall, where he stole signs with binoculars. Murphy rigged an underground wire from his perch to the third-base coaching box, where Bull Childs kept his foot above a junction box that would signal the pitch by buzzing once or twice. The Reds discovered and uprooted the system after they noticed Childs was not moving his right foot—not even when that portion of the coaching box included a puddle from rain. The Phillies “explained” the wire as something left behind by a traveling circus that had played at the ballpark. The club was not disciplined.

Murphy also used a system in which he signaled the pitches to hitters with curtains attached to his perch’s awning. Murphy used a similar system on the road by using handkerchiefs or a rolled-up newspaper from rooftops, buildings or bleachers. On Sept. 26, 1900, the Brooklyn Superbas caught him signaling from the top floor of a flathouse beyond the centerfield fence at Washington Park in Brooklyn.

Murphy’s entire existence on the roster seemed due to his sign-stealing talents. From 1899-1901 he played in only 20 games. When the Phillies sent him to the minors in 1901, newspapers referred to him as “chief of the buzzer department.”

1909 Highlanders

Gene McCann, a former player, was stationed behind the centerfield fence and peered through a hole with binoculars. He would tip off the scoreboard operator, who would tip vertical the horizontal bar in the “H” in Highlanders for a fastball. One day in September a trainer from the Tigers surprised McCann during a game, overpowering him and seizing the binoculars.

1910-14 Athletics

Substitute outfielder Danny Murphy, armed with binoculars, stood next to a weathervane on a rooftop in Philadelphia. He spun the weathervane north for a curveball and south for a fastball. The system worked well, except for when a gust of wind spun the weathervane in another direction.

1948 Indians

Braves pitcher Johnny Sain charged the Indians with putting a spy in the scoreboard with binoculars. The man would ring a buzzer in the dugout to signal the pitch. Later reports said Cleveland pitchers Bob Feller and Bob Lemon used a telescope obtained from a World War II navy ship. They called out pitches to a groundskeeper, who signaled hitters through an opening in the scoreboard or from a seated position in the bleachers.

1948 Cubs

Gene Mauch and Peanuts Lowry of the Cubs watched a game against the Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York with binoculars from the centerfield clubhouse. When they saw a sign for a fastball they put a bright peach nectar can in the window. For a curve, they took it down.

1951 Giants

The team stole signs from its centerfield clubhouse at the Polo Grounds with the use of a sophisticated 35-millimeter Wollensak telescope. An electrician rigged the phones between the clubhouse and bullpen, which was located in fair territory in right-centerfield 440 feet from home plate. One buzz meant fastball; two buzzes meant an off-speed pitch. Third-base coach Herman Franks, a former catcher, moved to the bullpen to decode the signs (which is why manager Leo Durocher came to coach third base in the second half of the season). Sal Yvars, a backup catcher stationed in the bullpen, would hold a baseball to signal fastball. To indicate an off-speed pitch he would toss the ball in the air.

Word about the system first surfaced in a report from an anonymous player in 1962.

1954-56 White Sox

Manager Marty Marion said he put a coach, Del Wilber, in the centerfield scoreboard with binoculars. He said Wilber relayed the sign for a fastball to the hitter by moving the “10” in the scoreboard next to Sherm Lollar’s name. Orioles manager Paul Richards said in 1956, “They did it last year and they’re doing it now through a high-powered telescope through a little hole in the scoreboard.”

1955 Athletics

The A’s used a surveyor’s telescope to steal signs from their bullpen. When an off-speed pitch was called, an A’s reliever would place a towel on the bullpen ledge. No towel signaled a fastball to the hitter.

1959 Yankees and Red Sox

The first charge that teams used TV cameras to steal signs derived from a Yankees-Red Sox game (what else?). It was the eighth NBC telecast using the newly installed centerfield camera. Because of the controversy, and at the request of commissioner Ford Frick, NBC said it would discontinue use of the centerfield camera.

1959 Giants

The Giants used a spy in the scoreboard to steal signs. Giants pitcher Al Worthington, a deeply religious man, told manager Bill Rigney he could not abide such cheating and asked for a trade. The Giants traded him to the White Sox.

1960 White Sox

Worthington quit his next team because that team was cheating, too. He quit in August because the White Sox stole signs from the centerfield scoreboard at Comiskey Park.

Pitcher Bob Shaw, after being traded by the White Sox to the Athletics in 1961, described the scheme: "They used a tube with a light in it, and somebody would sit in the scoreboard … If the light went on it was a fastball, if it didn’t it was a curve."

1960 Braves

Two Braves starting pitchers, Joey Jay and Bob Buhl, were discovered sitting in the bleachers at Wrigley Field and waving white scorecards to hitters to tell them what pitch was coming.

1961 Reds

According to Cincinnati pitcher Jay Hook, his team put a scout, a former pitcher named Brooks Lawrence, in the centerfield scoreboard at Crosley Field to steal signs and relay them to the dugout via telephone. Hook made his comments after joining the Mets in 1962.

Presaging Fiers, Hook said then, “I didn’t say anything about it, but now I’m on the Mets and I want to protect the Mets against that sort of thing. I think it’s wrong.

“The commissioner [Ford Frick] should see that a ruling is put in against it, and enforce it. A $10,000 fine would be a good idea.”

1961 Cubs

Braves manager Birdie Tebbetts filed a protest, accusing the Cubs of using binoculars from the bleachers and scoreboard at Wrigley Field. After the Braves traded for pitcher Jack Curtis from the Cubs, Curtis “confirmed the charges,” Tebbetts said.

Said Mets coach Solly Hemus then about rampant sign-stealing, “That’s the main reason games take so long to play these days. Switching signs, and conferences between catcher and pitcher add 20 minutes to a game.”

1971 Indians

White Sox manager Chuck Tanner charged the Indians stole signs from the scoreboard. He told reporters the White Sox “are not going to play in the Cleveland ballpark again until either the commissioner or American League president takes a look at that scoreboard.”

1973 Brewers

Rangers manager Whitey Herzog accused Bernie Brewer, the Milwaukee Brewers mascot, of partaking in a sign stealing scheme from his chalet in the outfield. According to Herzog, a man next to Bernie Brewer stole signs with binoculars. Bernie Brewer, dressed in Bavarian garb, would signal a breaking pitch to the batter by clapping furiously with his white gloves. He took off the gloves when the Rangers batted. Herzog complained to umpire Tom Haller, who chased away the man with binoculars and told Bernie Brewer to keep his gloves off.

In thinking about creating a similar home-field advantage in Texas, Herzog said, “Maybe we should put a Texas Ranger or somebody out there and shoot a gun or something when a curveball is coming.”

1976 Athletics

Herzog, then manager of the Royals, complained the A’s were stealing signs from their bullpen with the help of binoculars. Herzog led the umpiring crew out to the bullpen, where they found binoculars under a towel.

1976 Yankees

Manfred found in his research that this incident stood as the most recent penalty related to sign-stealing—though not directly.

Yankees scout Clyde King served as the team’s “eye in the sky” to position defenders during the postseason. King communicated with coach Gene Michael in the dugout via walkie-talkies. Manager Billy Martin claimed the commissioner’s office approved the system, but the Reds protested during World Series Game 1 when King and two other New York scouts, Tebbetts and Karl Kuehl, set up their operation in a CBS radio booth equipped with a TV monitor—not in the stands.

The Reds publicity director, Jim Ferguson, told them the commissioner wanted them to stop for fear they were stealing the signals of catcher Johnny Bench off the monitor and relaying them to the dugout. He ejected them from the booth.

After the game the commissioner’s office said Martin “did not precisely follow instructions,” which called for King to use a seat in the upper deck.

“We didn’t use the walkie-talkies for anything else but what we got permission to use them for,” an incensed Martin said after Game 1. “Whoever said anything else is a plain liar.”

Kuhn fined Martin $1,000—not for stealing signs, but for his comments.

1980s White Sox

The White Sox placed a 25-watt refrigerator bulb in the scoreboard at Comiskey Park. A White Sox staffer would sit in the manager’s office, watch the TV broadcast and signal pitches with a toggle switch connected to the light.

1990 White Sox

The Orioles filed a complaint that Joe Nossek, the White Sox’s “eye in the sky” used to position defenders, sat facing their dugout and accused him of stealing signs. The claim led to a rule against such surveillance.

1997 Mets

The Philadelphia Phillies complained to the league office that the Mets were using video cameras trained on opposing third-base coaches, pitchers and dugouts to steal signs. The league told the Mets to be sure the cameras were trained only on batters and pitchers.

1999 Indians

Red Sox manager Jimy Williams presented evidence to umpire Tim Welke that the Indians used a camera atop the centerfield wall to steal signs. Welke ordered the Indians to cover the camera. (The Red Sox claimed the signs were transmitted to the hitter by whistling from the dugout.) Cleveland said the camera was used to evaluate player performance.

It was not the first time Boston accused the Indians of cheating. In the 1995 ALDS, Boston manager Kevin Kennedy made the same accusation regarding the camera that Williams did.

2010 Phillies

The Rockies accused the Phillies of stealing signs after Philadelphia bullpen coach Mick Billmeyer was shown on camera using binoculars when the Rockies were batting. The Phillies denied the binoculars were used to steal signs.

2017-18 Astros

Houston stole signs with multiple systems, all based off video replay monitors and its video room. Players, Cora (then the bench coach) and support personnel all played active roles. The Astros alerted hitters to what was coming by banging on a trash can with a bat or massage gun, or by whistling, clapping or shouting.

 

MLB Responses to Cheating
Until last week, no known punishment existed that related directly to stealing signs. Here are the few instances when MLB actually took an official position against such behavior.

1910

American League president Ban Johnson offered a $500 reward for any player who presented evidence regarding sign stealing. He threatened to “blacklist forever” any player proven to have stolen signs.

1961

Responding to a wave of sign-stealing reports, National League president Warren Giles instituted the first official rule against stealing signs with devices. He warned that teams would be subject to forfeiting any wins gained using such a device.

2000

MLB executive Sandy Alderson sent a memo to all clubs that warned, “No club shall use electronic equipment, including walkie-talkies and cellular telephones, to communicate to or with any on-field personnel, including those in the dugout, bullpen field and—during the game—the clubhouse. Such equipment may not be used for the purpose of stealing signs or conveying information designed to give a club an advantage.”

2017

In fining the Boston Red Sox for misusing technology to steal signs, Manfred on Sept. 15 issued a reminder of the 2000 regulations against such cheating. He added a warning about future penalties: “All 30 clubs have been notified that future violations of this type will be subject to more serious sanctions, including the possible loss of draft picks.”

2018

On March 27, Manfred doubled down on his warning about the misuse of technology. In a three-page memo to club officials, he wrote: “Electronic equipment, including game feeds in the club replay room and/or video room, may never be used during a game for the purpose of stealing the opposing team’s signs.”

In the same paragraph, the memo stated in boldface type, “To be clear, the use of any equipment in the clubhouse or in the club’s replay or video rooms to decode opposing club’s signs during the game violates this regulation.”

 

The thing that gets me is how Claude Rains "shocked, shocked" opposing teams pretend to be when some other team gets popped. It's hilarious, as in my example of Lou Boudreau, who inside of a decade was a cold-busted instigator, then an "outraged" victim, and then within months of that, an instigator again. 

[MaybeACoordinator 8350]

2 minutes ago, wood said:

Who said it?

Shit, brainfart. Just a buddy of mine, very longtime Astros fan. (Unlike me, he got to be an Astro buddy. And he was friends with Gene Elston's daughter, so...he knows some shit. 

[wood 11637]

1 minute ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Shit, brainfart. Just a buddy of mine, very longtime Astros fan. (Unlike me, he got to be an Astro buddy. And he was friends with Gene Elston's daughter, so...he knows some shit. 

Cool, thanks. Will hit you up when I get some rep back!

[wood 11637]

7 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

The reason I've ever pushed back on it is b/c stupidity irritates me and I'm a sucker to respond to it b/c I have a compulsive personality in that way. I'm working on it.

You and me both, brother. I should really just stay away from the internet.

[mbtex 683]

I played wiffle ball with Cesar Cedeno. Always been an Astros fan. Read some baseball history this shit has been going on since the game started. Please the Yankees not cheating is laughable 26 players on the yankees during the steroid era were implicated in the mitchell report.

[TexArcher 38447]

19 hours ago, Helobious said:

And every Astros fan expects sympathy and wants to play the victim card given those circumstances. Not one of you has the objectivity or critical thinking ability to realize that the Astros got what was coming to them.

Most of us are actually fine with that.

What we're not fine with is the fact that the Astros also got what should've been coming to the Yankees and Red Sox.  And the fact that we have to listen to mouth-breathing idiots throw stones for "unprecedented" cheating when there are half a dozen guys on steroids and half a dozen pitchers doctoring balls in their favorite team's clubhouse right now.  

You're being really, really stupid about this and really, really pompous at the same time.

[TexArcher 38447]

And I grew up in Houston watching Nolan Ryan, Jose Cruz, Billy Hatcher, Bill Doran, and Glenn Davis in the Dome.  So don't give me that bandwagon bullshit when you're a kid from the Valley who roots for the fucking Yankees.

[Helobious 9516]

For the last time, growing up my choices for teams were one shitty team 5 hours away or one shitty team 8 hours away. Or one that was on ESPN all the time and had Derek fucking Jeter at short. For a kid just starting to play and watch the game the choice was easy.

[wood 11637]

1 hour ago, TexArcher said:

Most of us are actually fine with that.

What we're not fine with is the fact that the Astros also got what should've been coming to the Yankees and Red Sox.  And the fact that we have to listen to mouth-breathing idiots throw stones for "unprecedented" cheating when there are half a dozen guys on steroids and half a dozen pitchers doctoring balls in their favorite team's clubhouse right now.  

You're being really, really stupid about this and really, really pompous at the same time.

Well, it's Helobious, so ...

And you're exactly right. The Astros being punished isn't what's upsetting. Hey, they did the crime. It's the way they've been cast as the only guys doing it, doing it the most, doing it the longest, practically inventing it, etc, when this shit has not only been happening in other clubhouses, it's been rampant throughout MLB for 120+ years.

1 hour ago, TexArcher said:

And I grew up in Houston watching Nolan Ryan, Jose Cruz, Billy Hatcher, Bill Doran, and Glenn Davis in the Dome.  So don't give me that bandwagon bullshit when you're a kid from the Valley who roots for the fucking Yankees.

Seriously, a fucking Yankees fan from the fucking Valley of all places, who's been to all of 5 Yankees home games. The very definition of a fucking t-shirt fan ... sanctimoniously calling guys t-shirt fans when they've lived in Houston & have been to more Astros games than they can count. We even have guys here who saw them play as the .45s. Hell, I've been to more games at other MLB stadiums than his trips to Yankee stadium.  I went to more games at the Dome just in 1979 than his Yankees visits. I used to listen to Astros games on the radio for damn near every road game.

FTP. And a Yankees fan calling out another team for stealing signs? LMAO. That's some tone deaf fucking shit. But you know, Helobious ...

Edited June 11, 2021 by wood

[wood 11637]

3 minutes ago, Helobious said:

For the last time, growing up my choices for teams were one shitty team 5 hours away or one shitty team 8 hours away. Or one that was on ESPN all the time and had Derek fucking Jeter at short. For a kid just starting to play and watch the game the choice was easy.

The choice to be a t-shirt fan usually is easy. 

If the Astros or Rangers had been winning, you'd have been their t-shirt fan instead.

[Helobious 9516]

And if my grandma had wheels she’d have been a bike.

I picked the Yankees when I started watching baseball as a kid and have never wavered. It’s pro sports, “hometown” loyalty is meaningless and only sensible in the eyes of naive children. It’s a business and I chose to support one that had a successful and winning product. Sue me.

[Da Fino 2800]

24 minutes ago, Helobious said:

For the last time, growing up my choices for teams were one shitty team 5 hours away or one shitty team 8 hours away. Or one that was on ESPN all the time and had Derek fucking Jeter at short. For a kid just starting to play and watch the game the choice was easy.

What a fucking bandwagoner. Cute rant one page one. 

[wood 11637]

15 minutes ago, Helobious said:

And if my grandma had wheels she’d have been a bike.

I picked the Yankees when I started watching baseball as a kid and have never wavered. It’s pro sports, “hometown” loyalty is meaningless and only sensible in the eyes of naive children. It’s a business and I chose to support one that had a successful and winning product. Sue me.

K, bruhhh. Hey, be a t-shirt fan of whatever team you want to. Just save us the 't-shirt fan' idiocy when you're talking to real hardcore fans of their own local team, who've been fans of them through everything, probably for longer than your dumb ass has been alive - you know, the polar opposite of t-shirt fans. It's the height of hypocrisy.

[Huckleberry 33669]

"All of y'all are stupid bandwagon fans only following the Astros because they're good!"

"Hey, I picked the Yankees because they were good, that's my right!"

[MaybeACoordinator 8350]

Helobious would have us believe that Billy Martin's Bronx Zoo Yankees did not steal signs beyond the officially acceptable "code." It's preposterous to anyone who can remember Billy Martin that he would not cheat every way possible to win.

Or Bob Lemon's Yankees for that matter, in spite of him having been a ringleader of the Cleveland Indians' defiant 1940s cheating scandal. 

[WBT 20775]

He would have to know who they were first.

[TonyTexas 10587]

@Helobious What do these Yankees have in common? Bonus points if you  can name them all  

Edited June 11, 2021 by TonyTexas

[Helobious 9516]

What shitty pic quality. Top to bottom by column: A-Rod, some guy I really can’t place, Sheffield, cano, giambi, roger, cervelli (looks a little like knoblach but painted nails give it away easy), pettitte. 
 

They all played for the Yankees and are taller than Altuve is what they have in common. 

[wood 11637]

LOL. Chuck Knoblauch. Now there's an aggy name I haven't heard mentioned in a long time. Scumbag, just like his brother.

[BornOrange 1441]

2 hours ago, Helobious said:

For the last time, growing up my choices for teams were one shitty team 5 hours away or one shitty team 8 hours away. Or one that was on ESPN all the time and had Derek fucking Jeter at short. For a kid just starting to play and watch the game the choice was easy.

Definition of bandwagon fan.

 

[Helobious 9516]

Had to reverse google, missing guy is Jesus Montero. Forgot he existed. I remember when he & Manny banuelos were going to be the next big things.

This thread is off the rails, hope you guys enjoy making another Astros circle jerk. I became a Yankee fan and immersed myself in their history, couldn’t get enough of books, DVDs, etc. Show me a retired jersey number and I can say who wore it. I’d be shocked if most of your current fans even knew who Jose Cruz was, knew about the Killer B’s, etc. But I’m not the “real” fan of course.

[TonyTexas 10587]

49 minutes ago, Helobious said:

They all played for the Yankees and are taller than Altuve is what they have in common.

If you had any sense of humor you would have gone with “Who are 8 people who’ve never been in my kitchen “ But you know the real answer and at least your denial is amusing  

 

Edited June 11, 2021 by TonyTexas

[Hank Chinaski 6324]

50 minutes ago, Helobious said:

I’d be shocked if most of your current fans even knew who Jose Cruz was, knew about the Killer B’s, etc. 

I remember the Dome's scoreboard and $1 general admission outfield seats (and actually feeling cold because they cranked the shit out of that AC); when Dickie Thon was an emerging star before a beanball broke his face and derailed his career; Mike Scott and Glenn Davis (whom Milo dubbed "the Big Bopper") and - yes - Jose Cruz (and Nolan and Knepper and Doran and Bass and Hatcher and Puhl and Walling and Garner and Reynolds and Ashby and Kerfeld) and the '86 division winner in the club's 25th year; Scott's no-hitter to clinch (afternoon game and I caught the last few innings after the conclusion of my 4th-grade school day); Hatcher's foul pole HR and Bass striking out to end that NLCS; Here come the Astros/Burning with desire/Here come the Astros/Breathing orange fire;  watching Scott take a no-no through 8 2/3 against the Braves at the Dome before Ken Oberkfell broke it up with a little soft flare; the promise (which never quite materialized) of Eric Anthony; Biggio and Caminiti giving some hope for the future; the acquisition of Bagwell and his ROY award the next year; trading Kenny Lofton for Ed fucking Taubensee and knowing (at age 15) that that didn't seem like a good idea; Drayton taking over and signing Drabek and Swindell and it felt like the tide was turning; the first of 2 unfortunate rebrand/uniform changes; Bagwell's MVP year and the second one he should have won 5 years later; drafting Berkman in the first round out of Rice; acquiring Randy Johnson at the last minute and his 2 months of absolute brilliance; losing that year to the Padres in the NLDS and knowing it was the best team in franchise history to that point; moving to a new stadium; the Beltran acquisition and Edmonds breaking our hearts again with that catch on the Ausmus fly ball in the NLCS; the bittersweet WS appearance the next season in which Bagwell couldn't really play anymore (and getting swept); Drayton letting the franchise talent level completely deteriorate by letting the farm rot and stupidly overpaying aging veterans to keep the club almost mediocre; the move to the AL and the ownership change; being 100% on board with the Lunhow plan to strip it down to the studs because that was always the most direct and expedient path to contending; going to games whenever you felt like it and getting the best seats in the house because the club was awful, the stadium was 80% empty and people were giving tickets away; the emergence of Altuve and the callup of Springer; drafting Correa and Bregman and tracking all of their minor league stats; building up to a champion and perennial contender. 

Did they cheat and get caught and deserve to be punished? Sure. Was it sensationalized and overblown? Of course, scandals and outrage stir the pot and gets clicks (formerly sold newspapers), especially when MLB's 3 largest fan bases get to conclude "we didn't really lose!". Did the sign stealing seem to impact their performance at all? Not really, because they hit as well (actually better) on the road, in subsequent seasons, in 2021, etc. Can all of these things be true? Yes. Did I type a lot of words responding to Helobious? Sigh, yes. 

[Jshep34 2386]

What Hank said x2.
Cruz genuinely nicest guy you could meet.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[mbtex 683]

I am sure if the Yankees went through the rebuilding process losing 100 games and was forced to change leagues you would be watching every game. 

Edited June 11, 2021 by mbtex

[Had Enough 2093]

Mike Scott. Perhaps my least favorite player of all-time. I guess I should just consider he was better and more accomplished in his efforts than others.

Tacky shit, greenies, roids. All in the same category in my opinion. Dudes would have taken whatever was available or used whatever to enhance their game.

Same pricks with their dumbass unwritten rules.

I do view the Astros as MLB Aggie.

I don’t think everybody cheats. Generally speaking MLB has looked the other way far too often. I prefer my favorite players to do things the right way yet Barry Bonds is probably my favorite player. A punk off the field. Go figure. So if I were an Astros fan, I’d probably take the route of making an exception to doing it the right way.

With that said, I’m way more religious about Horns baseball so don’t tell me they’re like the SEC.

[ChickenSandwich 9860]

16 hours ago, Jshep34 said:

What Hank said x2.
Cruz genuinely nicest guy you could meet.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk


 

JO.   SE.      CCCCRRRRRUUUUUZZZZZ!

[Deej 77293]

On 6/11/2021 at 10:28 AM, Helobious said:

And if my grandma had wheels she’d have been a bike.

You don't need wheels to be the town bike. 

 

[HornOnTheBayou 8968]

On 6/11/2021 at 12:14 PM, TonyTexas said:

@Helobious What do these Yankees have in common? Bonus points if you  can name them all  

Is this one of those captchas that says "Select all squares that show a fucking cheater"?

[TonyTexas 10587]

On 6/11/2021 at 10:28 AM, Helobious said:

And if my grandma had wheels she’d have been a bike.

@Helobious’s grandma

 

 

 

[Helobious 9516]

I regret bringing grandma into this. And I feel worse for laughing at that pic.

[Gourmand 7776]

Interesting, but I would like to see the stats.