Why You're Allowed To Cheat In Baseball

since baseball was invented people have cheated at it a former player admitted to blackmailing umpires so they wouldn't call strikes on him a pitcher wrote a book admitting that he cheated explained how he cheated then continued to use that same technique to cheat for nine more seasons Todd Frazier jumped into the stands to catch this ball missed it took a different ball that fell out of a Fan's bag pretended it was the real ball and it was called an out none of these players got any significant punishment others aren't so lucky in fact a 2016 team employee was sentenced to over three years in prison for cheating a general manager cheated so badly in 2017 he was banned for life and in 2019 multiple Astros were banned fired and suspended for cheating that might have actually made them worse since then players and reporters have accused multiple other teams who shamed the Astros for cheating of doing that exact same cheating a team in 2010 got busted for a sign sealing method that was as illegal as the Astros even more effective and they got no punishment whatsoever but does baseball actually have more cheaters than any other sport well according to this clip the answer is no this motorcycle racer literally tried to kick his opponent off his bike while in a race this same driver pressed his opponent's brake going at a speed of over 130 miles per hour he was later suspended and dropped from the team this cyclist grabbed hold of a car and started going twice as fast and was also disqualified and for decades football coaches have tried to trip players running down the sideline they're pretty much always caught and fined for doing this what makes baseball cheating different is that a lot of it is actually allowed due to the nature of the sport there are hundreds of known ways to cheat investigating and enforcing minor infractions would be such a hassle that a certain level of cheating has to be allowed just to make the games run smoothly however this creates a massive gray area where we're cheating that is widely considered okay and cheating that literally gets you sent to prison isn't that far off for example in 2021 Kevin Kiermaier got into an altercation after stealing the Blue Jays game plan in broad daylight after he played the plate the Blue Jays catchers game plan fell out of his wristband Kier buyer looked at it picked it up immediately checked if anyone on the blue jay saw him pick it up then went to The Dugout and gave it to his coach who immediately hit it this sheet essentially says how the Blue Jays plan to pitch the Rays hitters and according to one blue jay Source quote if there's one card we wouldn't want an opponent to have it's that one the next day the Blue Jays asked the race to return the card and Kiermaier responded by saying even though at first he only took the card because he thought it was his now that he realizes it wasn't he quote wasn't going to give it back the very next day the Blue Jays drilled him Kiermaier got pissed the bench is cleared and the Pitcher was ejected he and his manager were suspended for drilling Kiermaier on purpose Kiermaier the one who stole the information got zero punishment whatsoever Chris Correa also stole information from another team and literally went to prison for it Correa was The Scouting director for the Cardinals in 2011 his two bosses left the franchise to work for the Astros the Astros had a database with information on scouting their draft board trade talks and other key information Correa got access to this database by guessing his former boss's password he used this information to help the Cardinal scouting department for years until the FBI started investigating him showed up to his house charged him with corporate Espionage saying that the hacking cost the Astros 1.7 million dollars and sentenced him to over three years in prison the FBI was also involved in an investigating MLB players for corking their bats a type of cheating that was done for years which turns out doesn't even help four years some players would illegally drill a hole in their bat and fill it up with something they thought would make the bat lighter while also giving the bat more of a trampoline effect in 1974 Greg Nettles broke his Bat and six bouncy balls came flying out after the game sang he didn't know it was corked and used the Bat because it was gifted to him by a random Yankees fan who told him it would quote bring him good luck Wilton Guerrero broke his bet on this play and instead of letting the batboy pick it up he sprinted as fast as he could to retrieve the bat so no one else would see that it was corked this made the umpires suspicious so they immediately confiscated the bat from him inspected it and ejected him in 1994 the Tigers asked the umpires to investigate Albert Bell's bat They confiscated the bat and locked it in the umpire's dressing room Belle's teammates literally crawled through the ceiling broke into the umpire's room and replaced Belle's bat with his teammate Paul Sorrento those bats unfortunately for him the umpires notice pieces of ceiling scattered across the floor and the bat that was supposed to be Albert Bells had the name Sorrento written on it MLB called the police to investigate and threaten to get the FBI involved if Albert Bell's bat wasn't returned Jason Grimsley the teammate who did the heist returned the Bat MLB x-rated found Cork and suspended Bell seven games the last player to get caught for this was Sammy Sosa and it was 19 years ago because ironically multiple scientists have found that corking your bat doesn't even help the trampoline affected's insignificant and the decrease in weight causes less power on impact with the ball the only Advantage is that the bat is lighter however anytime your bat breaks you're caught which is bound to happen eventually what is proven to work is changing the field itself the rosard family is known as the most beloved groundskeepers in baseball they also may be the Sport's biggest cheaters the original Brossard was a groundskeeper for the Indians in the 30s he created a portable fence that they literally moved back 15 feet every time the opposing team came to the plate he also invented Frozen baseballs used for his pitchers only that were a half ounce heavier due to them being stored in humidifiers for weeks his son and his grandson became known in Chicago by drenching the field with water when the White Sox starter was a ground ball pitcher this made the infield slower making grounders easier to field and Ricky Henderson claims they made the infield dirt extremely muddy on purpose making it harder for him to get speed while stealing groundskeepers are constantly making the infield faster or slower by cutting the grass letting it grow or adding water to the infield depending on who's pitching for their team this really isn't cheating this is Bill vech the owner of the White Sox once had a promotion where he gave everyone in the Outfield bleachers a free mirror to be used to reflect Sun into the batter's eyes a former twins employee admitted to adjusting the air conditioning in the metronome in a way that would make it blow out while the Twins were hitting causing more home runs for the home team when the opposing team was hitting it would blow in to prevent home runs probably the most common form of cheating is ball doctoring which happens in pretty much every single game this is done by either adding a sticky substance adding a slippery substance or by scuffing a ball scuffing a ball changes the ball's aerodynamic properties creating more movement Joe Nico used to do this with a nail filer got investigated and tried to discreetly throw it away unfortunately the umpires and everybody watching saw him do it rich Honeycutt did this by taping a thumbtack to his finger for God he taped it to his finger then went to wipe sweat off his face he accidentally cut his own head open on the mound the umpires went to check on the blood notice his finger had a thumbtack taped to it and ejected him Don Sutton got caught in and ejected for scuffing up multiple balls during a game in 1978. after the game he got a lawyer threatened to sue the Umpire and the national league for quote depriving him of making a living and this actually worked the national league decided not to suspend him the spitball was banned after Ray Chapman got hit in the face and died it was considered dangerous because players were spitting so much stuff on the ball that they were turning black making them impossible to see MLB made a rule that allowed no more than two pitchers on each team to throw a spitball these players were grandfathered in the last legal spitballer was Burley Grimes who chewed slippery elm bark and spit it on the ball pitchers used this lubricants spit and Vaseline to create a slippery grip creating less Spin and more unnatural movements on their pitches Jose Valverde achieved this by salivating on a ball on live TV in 2012. according to reports MLB investigated but no punishment was given in which is typical in fact Gaylord Perry was so famous for using a spitball he wrote a book called me and the spitter admitted he used it explained how he used it then continued to use it for nine more seasons he likely used it every single game and was only ejected for it once the only time any ball doctoring is in force is if it's blatantly obvious or the other team informs the Umpire that the pitcher is doing it which never happens because most likely their pitcher is also doing it meaning about 99 of ball doctoring is basically allowed but by far the most controversial form of cheating is sign stealing some of it is allowed some of it is not and there have been a ton of teams in recent memory not named the Astros who have been accused caught and started fights for going too far but before we get to that a word from today's sponsor the baseball postseason is here and FanDuel is doing a massive promotion now is your chance to win big with FanDuel Sportsbook right Now new customers can step up to the plate with a no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars just sign up using promo code bde place your first bet for however much you want and if you don't win FanDuel will give you up to one thousand dollars back in free bets so you basically have nothing to lose unlike other sports books FanDuel offers promotions every single day the app is safe and when you win they pay you fast so download the number one Sportsbook in America by going to www.fandual.com baseball doesn't exist use promo code bde and get a no sweat first bet for up to one thousand dollars do it right now in 2011 an article written by ESPN alleged that multiple Anonymous relievers claimed they saw a man in Toronto sitting in the Outfield signaling to Blue Jay's hitters what pitch was coming by raising his hands above his head for off-speed pitches the next inning when Jose Bautista went to his position a pitcher in the bullpen screamed at him quote if you do it again I'm going to hit you in the head using Clues from the article it's easy to determine that the game in question occurred against the White Sox in April where the TV broadcast shows a man in white sitting in center field in perfect view of the hitter in the sixth inning in the eighth inning after the White Sox confronted the Blue Jays for stealing signs the man was gone exactly how the anonymous source described shortly before this article the Yankees the Yankees broadcast and the Red Sox all seemed extremely suspicious when playing in Toronto and perhaps the most damning evidence was that the entire team's offensive stats were dramatically better at home than on the road 5 AI Blue Jays players had an Ops at least 99 points higher at home than on the road when making contact the team was 18 percent more likely to hit a home run at home in discrepancy that's only been seen three times since 1950. players are constantly trying to steal signs when a runner gets to second he is looking at the catcher signs if he can decode the signs he will use some form of secret signal like touching his knee or helmet to show The Hitter what pitch is coming in 2021 Johan Aviator told Mike ystremski to quote shut the up because he thought he was stealing signs turns out yestremsky didn't even know the signs it was just making signals to get into his head however if yosremsky was doing this it would be completely legal as long as he wasn't using technology to do it that's what caused this altercation in 2014. Chris Sale was facing Victor Martinez when in the middle of an at-bat he started staring in the Outfield he believed Martinez had a guy in the Outfield with binocular telling Martinez what pitch was coming he went on to strike Martinez out then tipped his cap to the right center field wall he escalated this further by mocking the tigers by pretending to use binoculars in The Dugout then drilled Martinez with the very next pitch he threw to him they stared each other down and the benches cleared later in the game the Tigers hit a double and started mocking Sail by doing the binocular signs themselves this was not the first time a team has accused another team of doing this the Phillies did this by putting a guy in center field to decode signs then installed an underground wire hooked up to an electrical box they buried underneath the third base coaches box that would Buzz depending on what pitch was coming the hitters would literally see their coach vibrate and know what pitch was coming unfortunately this was extremely obvious and one day an opponent went to the third base coaching box in the middle of the game and started digging this was in 1898 in 2010 the Phillies got more accusations after the Rockies broadcast picked up a video of their Bullpen coach looking through binoculars and Shane Victorino talking to the bullpen in the middle of the game for some reason the Phillies got a warning from MLB in the 50s the Brewers put two pitchers in the Wrigley field bleachers had them take their shirts off to fit in then use binoculars and a game program to steal and relay signs in 1973 manager Whitey Herzog accused the Brewers mascot of cheating by doing specific chants and dances in center field when he knew a certain pitch was coming and saying quote if he does that again tomorrow I'm going to climb up there into his God little house and personally kick his ass and in 2018 the Red Sox got caught using a replay room to decode the catcher signs and give them to players but they could only relay this information to the hitters if there was a runner on second the yank he's got caught doing something pretty much identical in 2015 to 2016 but the Astros took this a step further they had their own camera in center field with a live feed into the video room they used an app called decoder by putting each sign that ketcher puts down into the app then entering what pitch is thrown into the app it could tell you the exact sequence the pitcher was using making it quick and easy to decode these signs someone right outside the Dugout would watch a live feed of the signs then bang on a trash can each time an off-speed pitch was coming but the Astros probably weren't the only ones doing this 2021 Brewers catcher Eric Kratz claimed they caught the Rockies doing the exact same thing against them in 2018 saying they used to take a Thera gun and bang it on their metal bench to Signal what pitch was coming his team the Brewers were also accused heavily after the Scandal broke yudarver said that he had to step off the mound multiple times after noticing batter's eyes looking down the first base line right after he got the sign from the catcher Yelich responded to Darvish by saying quote be better than this nobody needs help facing you Chris Sale publicly said he knew for a fact other teams were cheating Joey Votto said something very similar a reporter said that he's heard the Rangers had a similar system another reporter tweeted that AJ Beltre had a friend with binoculars in center field relaying signs to him and that the Dodgers set up cameras all over Minute Maid Park to steal signs during the 2017 World Series later saying that these allegations were unfounded he shouldn't have reported them and that doing this quote turned his life upside down but even if all these unfounded rumors were actually true stealing signs probably doesn't even help as much as you think the Astros could only steal signs at home but when comparing their home and away stats their strikeout rate was essentially the same and their overall offensive production was exactly the same but the biggest problem with stealing signs on every single pitch is that if you do it long enough it becomes extremely obvious every sign selling method I've mentioned was only able to happen for a season at most before it was discovered the Astros trash can banging went on for only four months before the White Sox heard a bang called time to change their signs and that was the last time the Astros ever banged on a trash can the Astros definitely could have found other ways to relay signs but the entire league knew they were doing something rumors of the Astros sign stealing were spread across the league for almost two years before the Scandal went public mob has since added a 10 to 30 second delay on TV to avoid this as well as a new pitch comp system that allows catchers to give signs without using their fingers making stealing signs even harder and even if you do find a way around this eventually pitchers are gonna notice hitters not swinging at breaking balls out of the Zone they hit her looking where they're not supposed to a suspicious person with binoculars or someone on the team will go to another team and immediately tell his new team that his old team was cheating so yes mob teams are always trying to steal signs but even if they do it effectively is it actually turning bad teams good and dramatically changing the outcome of games probably not

Channel: Baseball Doesn't Exist

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Length: 18min 8sec (1088 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 05 2022