Sneaky Advantage

The Houston Astros can potentially be put into one of the biggest cheating scandals of the century. Recently a Youtube page by the name “Jomboy Media” put out a video titled “Astros using cameras to steal signs, a breakdown.” The video shows clips of Astros at bats from the 2017 season in which they seem to be stealing signs very quickly. In the sport of baseball, stealing signs is pretty hard to do which is why knowing the signs can be such an advantage. Once the other teams know what you’re gonna do, they can easily prepare for it and take advantage of what they have.

Sign Stealing

During the video, they are able to points out tendencies that occur when opposing teams throw certain types of pitches. Whenever a breaking ball would be thrown a loud bang or a whistle would be heard. This would alert the hitters to be ready for a potential change up or curve ball. Whenever the fastball was thrown, no sound was made at all. Many have made it aware that the Astros installed a special camera in center field that sent live video footage to their dugout. From there, the team’s personnel can quickly dissect the opposing teams signs because the camera is zoomed in right where the catcher is giving signals.

Asterisk in History

Right when the catcher would give his pitcher the signal you could hear the indication of whats gonna happen immediately after. There’s no way a team would be able to relay signs to the batters this fast without advanced technology. If more evidence comes out from the allegations, the Astros could face monumental consequences. The fact that they may have used their method during the 2017 playoffs, in which they won the World Series, makes matters far worse. Major League Baseball will go through the off season investigating what could be a horrible fate for Houston.