After years of slick New York lawyerly maneuverings prevented its dramatic “unsealing,” at last the public has access to the chastising letter from Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred to New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman. The letter reveals that the Yankees used high-tech methods to steal signals in both the 2015 and 2016 seasons — lending credence to the stories that 2016 Yankee Carlos Beltran and 2017 Astro modernized Astro cheating, as has been reported before.
All of this came about because a bunch of whiny losers in a Draft Kings fantasy league claimed they would have bet differently if they knew one team would have had an “advantage” over another because of cheating. What idiots. What naive children those nerds were. (The suit has since been pulled.)
The unsealing of this letter has done absolutely nothing to alter my original position that:
A) all MLB teams cheat
B) With any resource at hand. Ranging from simple binoculars and telegraph wires to Apple watches and hi-def cameras, it has always been at the cutting edge of technology, be that of the 1870s or The World Steve Jobs Made.
C) They all claim they do not….
D) But that all other teams do, especially those at the top of the standings.
I’ve studied this and there has always been a Trumpian level of every accusation being a confession. (If you want to read detailed accounts, click on my history of high-tech cheating here. The careers of Hall of Famers Lou Boudreau and Hank Greenberg are quite comical in this regard.)
And so it is today. From the Manfred Letter:
The Yankees' use of the dugout phone to relay information about an opposing Club's signs during the 2015 season, and part of the 2016 season, constitutes a material violation of the Replay Review Regulations. By using the phone in the video review room to instantaneously transmit information regarding signs to the dugout in violation of the Regulations, the Yankees were able to provide real-time information to their players regarding an opposing Club's sign sequence - the same objective of the Red Sox's scheme that was the subject of the Yankees' complaint.
See what I mean? Even as they were accusing the Bosox, the Yanks were up to the same shenanigans.
As Derek Zumsteg, author of The Cheater's Guide to Baseball, put it:
[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]...
Such as it was, such as it shall ever be…
A new twist with this scandal is that I can say unequivocally that the Astros are being unfairly singled out. Everywhere, including the Houston sports media, you read that what the Astros did was “far more egregious” that what either the Red Sox or Yankees did. And I say, how? If the end goal is to relay information on incoming pitches to a better in real time, how in the name of Sweet Lucifer Boudreau does it matter if it’s done via a camera in center field and banging on a trash can, or some other means?
I’ve seen it claimed that neither the Sox nor the Yankees relayed this info directly from the dugout to the batter’s box. That they instead stole the signs, somehow relayed them to baserunners (presumably guys on second base only, because batters caught looking at teammates on other bases are asking to get a fastball in the ribs for this very reason).
First, this is bullshit. How could the coaches relay this info to a guy on second? Brainwaves? Second, how much easier is it to send it straight to the batter’s box via some kind of very simple vocal code? Shit, we stole signs on my eighth grade little league team and it was simple: “If it’s a curve, I’ll say ‘Come on Lomax, hang in there,’ and if its a fastball I’ll say ‘Let’s go Johnny, ducks on the pond.’” Simple transfer of first and last names.
I would be willing to bet my life that if there were a baseball lunatic with the access to Yankees games from 2015 and 2016 and beyond and obsession enough to have the time, and with clear audio to the Yankee dugout, they would find whatever verbal code it was the Yankees were using. To relay pitches to batters in real time. Which makes what the Astros did not “far more egregious.” They were just dumb enough to use a trash can and thereby create a nemesis as dialed-in and obsessive as “Jomboy,” baseball videographer and diehard Yankee fan. I would challenge him to turn his talents toward examining his own team’s dugout communications, or sleep poorly for the rest of his life due to a guilty conscience.
The same night-hag ridden howling bed of no rest Mike Fiers must sleep in for the rest of his life.
I was 11 in 1955 and a dominant Little League hurler but one night I was getting my ears pinned back by opposing hitters. My coach, my dad, deduced our catcher's signals were being stolen so we created a system whereby I gave the signals to the catcher while he continued to give signals as if we were unaware of the scheme. That fixed the problem but we were behind 5-0 and I absorbed my first loss in a year in which I won 7 games (we only played 18). Thus, as of 67 years ago, sign-stealing had already made its way to kid baseball.
I agree that all teams are out to figure out any way they can to get an advantage over their opponent. I would also posit that this is a problem without a solution or, hey, maybe we could give all players and coaches a lie detector test after each game.