The guilty being the Houston Astros baseball club, the most evil, wretched, vile, and heinous cheaters ever in the history of mankind 🤷
Buster has it so bad for the Yankees his turds have pinstripes.
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I don’t understand this part: “The Astros ran a far more egregious operation: positioning a camera in center field at Minute Maid Park, pointing it at the catcher and banging trashcans to relay the signs he flashed to Houston hitters.”
Every MLB team has this camera and uses it for post-game analysis, right? The Astros tapped into it in real time, looked at the monitor then signaled the batter about what was coming, right? Isn’t this exactly what the Yankees were doing with their dugout phone and hand signals and the Red Socks were doing with their Apple Watches? Trash can / dugout phone / Apple watch. What’s the difference here. They are all tech relays of realtime info the the batter. Although, the Astros version was the most analog.
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The one difference is that they signaled baserunners instead of the hitter at the plate. I’m not even sure why they did it that way. Did they think signalling the hitter directly crossed some kind of line, that they ‘earned’ the right to give signs to the hitter by getting somebody to second (even though the signs were still gotten illegally)? Did they think signalling the hitter was too distracting for him or too easy for the other team to detect?
But otherwise it was the exact same crime the Astros committed, giving hitters stolen signs in real time. It just happened fewer times each game.
I don’t think that banging on a trashcan is considered “technology.” That’s the most galling part of the reaction. The thing that is against the rules is using technology to steal signs, which everyone involved assuredly did. If they used apple watches to tell the runner or the batter what the sign was, that would also be against the rules. But if Beltran were sitting on the edge of the dugout and noticed (without the aid of technology) a pitcher tipping his pitches (or if the catcher wasn’t hiding his signs between his legs), he can bang all he wants or whistle or clap to alert everyone what pitch is coming.
Therein lies the “genius” of the trashcan. Everyone else needed a runner at second to relay the sign from the dugout back to the hitter. Doesn’t make the trashcan system any worse or “more illegal” than any other scheme.
Anyone that honestly believes the Yankees were ONLY stealing signs and relaying them with a runner on second, I’ve got a bridge in Arizona you may also be interested in purchasing.
The problem is that the Astros system was loud and stupid and easily picked up on game feeds. If you’re using a code-word system, or signs, or something not blatantly obvious, it’s WAY harder to prove.
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But what stopped the Yankees from signalling hitters directly? Was it concern that the hitter behaving oddly, staring into the dugout or whatever, would tip off the other team? The obvious solution would be to use the third base coach to pass the signals. Was he not in on the scheme, or did he refuse to take part?
I always assumed it was a matter of timing. The moment between the signal being given and the pitcher starting his delivery isn’t a good opportunity for the batter to be looking around at the dugout or base coaches. They can use their ears, or look past the pitcher to the guy leading off second, but that’s it.
Also, I’m with Mark on this one. No way they were only doing it with a runner on second.
You know, maybe if MLB would have published the news that the Yankees were cheating and got fined, maybe other teams would have learned the lesson.
It’s all stupid. MLB let the Yankees and Red Sox get away with it then cracked down on the system when little brother whooped their asses and won a championship. I know the Astros would have won in 2017 regardless.
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Basically the Astros cheated better than the others and they are not the Yankees and Red Sox. That’s why the Astros get to be the scapegoat. Not that we didn’t already know this
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Well said.
How dare a smaller market franchise that was the whipping boy of that chucklefuck bud selig (and later rob manfred), go and thump the high, holy, eternally magnificent, timeless, perfect and godly franchises of mlb- the Massholes/sawx, Evil Empire/yanks, and of course the hated fucking dojers?
The Astros clearly must have had to have been the worst cheaters ever to have pulled it all off.
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This is the exact reasons why this is an issue. First, hiding the fact that the Yankees cheated. Second, and most importantly, they lost to an ‘inferior’ team.
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The Yankees have been doing a great job of losing to “inferior” teams since 2009.
Except in 2015 when the Yankees were cheating and the Astros weren’t and the Astros still shut them out at home.
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Trash-banging is not illegal, Manfred. Using technology in real time was. NYY and Bosox did that.
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To end their season.
The Athletic’s deconstruction of the letter (might be subscriber-walled)
Here’s the money quote from the Athletic article on the degree of egregiousness:
The letter provides direct confirmation of what The Athletic first reported in 2020, that the Yankees were using their video room to break down sign sequences during the 2015 and 2016 seasons. They were decoding sign sequences in the video room before bringing that information out to the dugout and to runners on second base in what became known as the base runner method.
Such a system was also employed by the 2017-18 Astros and 2017-18 Red Sox. (The 2017 Astros used a concurrent system considered more egregious, with a camera in center field that was used to relay exactly what pitch was coming to hitters.)
I’m not sure how the Yankees were using video to break down sign sequences without using a camera. That seems like a ridiculous distinction to me.
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Babe Ruth’s ghost