The Houston Astros baseball
club has come under fire and investigation from accusations of stealing signs
of opposing teams.
Specifically, the Astros are
accused of using a camera in center field to view signals from catchers to pitchers.
Someone somewhere in the Houston ball park then decrypts the signals,
determines which pitch is to be thrown and then relays that information to the
Astros dugout, where players bang on a garbage can to let the Astros batter
know what kind if pitch he will receive.
Sign stealing is alleged to
have given the Astros the 2017 World Series title, as well as playoff wins in
2018 and 2019.
All of that sounds plausible –
a camera in center field focused on an opposing catcher, someone viewing the
signs and determining the coming pitch and relaying that information to the
Houston dugout.
What is strange in the
accusations is, the Astros have to bang on garbage cans to let a hitter know
the pitch. A digital camera sends images to a digital receiver, but the end
communication is a bat banged on a garbage can.
Major League Baseball has
rules against using electronic devices to steal signs. However, stealing signs
through eyeball observation and then in some fashion passing information to a
hitter is not illegal.
It is not illegal because every
team steals signs, or tries to.
Baseball Commissioner Rob
Manfred has promised an in-depth investigation and harsh punishments should the
accusations be proved true.
MLB acts as though no team in
the history of baseball ever stole signs before the Astros secreted a camera in
center field and a receiver somewhere else, as well as a metal garbage can and
a spare baseball bat in the dugout.
Baseball players talk about stealing
signs the old fashioned way – a runner at second base decrypting a catcher’s
signs and then relaying the decryption to the hitter. Cliff Floyd of MLB
Network talked stealing signs as a teaching tool. Floyd and other players in
the dugout watched other players to figure out who was signaling what to whom.
Other players, Floyd said, taught him things he had not thought about.
And then there is Al
Worthington, who played 14 years for five teams in the Major Leagues and who
was traded because he told management that as a Christian he could not play for
a team that cheated.
“In September 1959, with the Giants holding a
slim lead over the Dodgers in the National League pennant race, he heard that
the Giants were using a spy in the grandstand, armed with a pair of binoculars.
He went to manager Bill Rigney. ‘I told Bill that I had been talking to church
groups, telling people you don’t have to lie or cheat in this world if you
trust Jesus Christ. How could I go on saying those things if I was winning
games because my team was cheating?’” Within two days, Worthington was traded
to the Boston Red Sox.
In 1960, the Chicago White
Sox bought Worthington’s contract from Boston. After four games with the Chicago
team, Worthington went home to Alabama. He had learned that the White Sox were
stealing signs.
Worthington was a good
baseball pitcher, but for at least one player his personal beliefs had more
influence than did his baseball performance.
Felipe Alou, longtime
National League player and manager said this of Al Worthington: 'The day I joined the Giants was one of the most important days of my
life," he (Felipe Alou) recalled. "That was the day my new teammate, Al
Worthington, introduced me to Jesus Christ. I don't believe
in accidents. I believe that was a man who was waiting for me.”
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