Kemmeter column: Sign-stealing scandal darkens baseball
By Gene Kemmeter
Major League Baseball zoomed to the top of the sports headlines last week when it announced the suspensions of Houston Astros manager A. J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow for stealing signs from opposing teams using technology in 2017 and 2018. The Astros won the World Series in 2017 but lost in the 2018 playoffs.
The headlines remained on the sport of baseball as the Astros fired Hinch and Luhnow after MLB announced the suspensions and ordered the team to pay a $5 million fine and forfeit their first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021.
Subsequently, the Boston Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora, who was the Astros’ bench coach and closely involved in implementing the stealing scheme, while the New York Mets fired manager Carlos Beltran, who had just been hired in November and was the only Astros player specifically mentioned in the MLB report.
Stealing signs has long been admired as an art form in baseball and tolerated as long as teams did not use binoculars or electronics during a game in an attempt to gain an advantage. During the “Golden Age of Baseball,” the National League banned the use of a “mechanical device” to steal signs in 1961.
Four decades later, in 2001, MLB issued a memorandum saying teams cannot use electronic equipment to communicate with each other during games, especially to steal signs. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred subsequently fined the Boston Red Sox in 2017 for using a “smartwatch” to try to steal signs. He warned teams that future incidents of electronic sign stealing would bring more serious sanctions.
As “instant replay” review grew more common, all teams were allowed to install video replay rooms in their stadiums in 2014 before MLB realized the potential misuse of the video feed for other purposes and placed league officials in those rooms in the 2018 playoffs. New rules were instituted in 2019, placing an official in all those rooms for a live-camera feed while allowing teams to only watch an eight-second delay.
Word of the Astros’ sign-stealing efforts leaked out last November when The Atlantic, a subscription-based website, posted a story that quoted Mike Fiers, a former Milwaukee Brewer and Wisconsin Timber Rattlers pitcher who played for the Astros in 2017. Fiers said a center-field camera sent a feed to the tunnel behind the Astros dugout in Houston’s Minute Maid Park.
An Astros staff member or player would then hit a trash can to signal a specific pitch to the batter at the plate. Videos later surfaced showing individuals for the Astros striking the can during games. The authors of The Athletic story later said they continue to hear that other teams, not only the Astros, use electronic sign-stealing methods, but those reports haven’t been verified.
This latest scandal gives more fodder to baseball purists who would like the game to remain free of the modern changes to the sport. What the scandal does show, however, is that MLB needs to recognize the opportunities provided by new technology to alter the simple purities of the sport beloved by so many. Technology has a way of doing that.