Posted on 01/07/2020 11:15:38 AM PST by DFG
The Boston Red Sox are the latest Major League Baseball team to be embroiled in a sign-stealing scandal. The Red Sox are alleged to have used the video replay room to steal opponent’s signs during the 2018 season, according to Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic.
The team sent players to the video replay room — which is usually housed near the dugout — to study signs and relay information back to their teammates, according to three people with the Red Sox during the 2018 season. While this practice wasn’t uncommon around the league, MLB cracked down on it prior to the 2018 season, sending out memos strictly forbidding players from using the video replay room to steal signs.
The Red Sox’s method for relaying those signs to hitters wasn’t as loud or obvious as the Houston Astros’ tactic of banging on a trash can. The Red Sox were more subtle when relaying information.
Typically, the player who stole the signs would then walk back to the dugout to inform their teammates. Once runners got on base, they would pass along the signs based on their position on the base, according to The Athletic.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
Getting signals has been going on as long as the first two little kids kicked a cabbage across the meadow.
Learned from the Patriots
It’s a Boston thing.
And of course, that sort of thing was involved with the Bobby Thompson home run in 1951.
What the heck is it with Boston? First the Patriots, now this?...............
They don't have cell phones?...............
It must be true because the Red Sox did so well in 2019 after winning the Series in 2018.
Pats / Red Sox - More dirty titles than an adult video store
No, the batter is not allowed to hold a cell phone while batting.
Actually, they are banned in the dugout.
Don’t know if this story is true or not, and this is a comment independent of any specific team, but given the speed of pitches these days, and the ability to change up from a 100 mph fastball to an 82 mph ‘off speed’ curve ball makes it a requirement for most hitters to often guess on pitches. If those are ‘educated’ guesses, all the better for the hitter.
There are some really, really tiny ones that prison inmates get smuggled in from time to time................inside.......orifices.........
inmates don’t usually smuggle cell phones, they just bribe some of the staff
Or they have conjugal visitations..........
There are easy ways to defend against video relay sign stealing or any type of sign stealing. They usually work by changing the signs based on inning number, number of outs, baserunners or score. That this isn’t the default today and usually not done is a testament to laziness, dumbness, or stubbornness.
That said I’m glad the Nats used a system against the Astros.
Freegards
I would bet that a lot of personal cheating happens by device now. Just put a small button buzzer in a sock or under an athletic wrap that triggers when someone looking at a feed of the catcher thinks an off speed pitch is coming.
Freegards
“It must be true because the Red Sox did so well in 2019 after winning the Series in 2018.”
Apparently the Yankees and the Rays changed their indicator.
rwood
All MLB teams have been doing this for donkey’s years; it’s nothing new.
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