When Did / Will the Astros Outlive the Cheatstros Label for You

The Game Room
41

PitchCom is an electronic device used by pitchers and catchers to send signals electronically instead of visual signals. It’s not hard to imagine a creative coaching staff using it to communicate too, which would be cheating. It’s tantamount to players wearing radios. It also eliminates the strategic element of stealing signs the conventional way.

MLB rules prohibit using electronic devices during a game - the exact same rule the Astros violated with video cameras to intercept visual signals.

42

Of course MLB rules don’t prohibit PitchCom. MLB obviously expressly allows it. So teams are using it to steal their own signs?

I understand what you are trying to say but you are stretching reality to try and make a point.

43

I’m not sure anyone said that in this conversation (if they did, I missed it). For my part, what I meant was that modern baseball has become so different from the game I grew up with that I feel like cheating to gain an advantage is almost expected and doesn’t carry the stigma it once did.

44

Yes, because their reaction is to change the rules or make an exception instead of enforcing the rules that were violated. Once it was exposed, the problem no longer existed.

I’m just saying that the MLB response to cheating bothers me more than the cheating did. I’m not asking anyone to agree with me. Baseball left me behind many years ago. I’m used to it.

45

It was said, or at least implied, but not by you as far as I know.

You know what? That’s totally fair and I get that.

46

I would argue that I can truthfully say “I personally don’t care about it” whether I understand the game or not.

47

Moderating:

Then you shouldn’t participate - I let the first time you came in to dismiss the whole issue as not affecting you as fair enough, to keep repeating it about a subject you admit to not caring about or researching is a now approaching a threadshit. Don’t do this again.

48

Like having a transmitter in the dugout? I think it would be hard to pull off and not get caught.

I didn’t know about PitchCom until this thread, but it seems like it can have more impact than just preventing sign stealing. Since there are more than 700 codes, you could have a lot more commands than just the usual hand signs (e.g. pitches and pick-offs).

Is this practical? Or is it not that useful in baseball? I guess there’s not that much the defence needs to keep secret.

49

PitchCom is explicitly and only between the catcher and the pitcher. If either of them then uses hand signals to communicate with the other 7 players on the field that’s subject to the old-fashioned rules on sign-stealing.

50

I think of them as the team the Nationals beat to win their only World Series. Supposedly the Nationals came up with a way to beat the sign stealing, but apparently it only worked in Houston since they lost all 3 games in DC.

51

Three fielders have receivers, no (typically second, short, and center)?

The catcher can relay defensive plays from the dugout to second and short. And the center fielder knows the pitches and can anticipate where the ball might be hit to.

I don’t watch MLB or have an opinion on PitchCom, but it has some impact other than prevent (catcher) sign stealing – I could see why some people might not like it.

52

TIL. I had no idea they allowed other players to have it. I guess on the logic that the short, 2nd, and CF stood a good chance of seeing the old finger signs. Why take that away?

53

They didn’t just have a good chance, they need to see it. Watch the next time there’s a man on first base and you’ll see a middle infielder (usually the shortstop) make a signal behind his glove to the other middle infielder—usually mouth wide open or tight shut. That lets them know who should cheat toward second on a double play.

54

First off, just to give you some kind of idea of how much respect I have for this national pastime, we’re talking a sport where:

  • There’s no salary cap worth beans, meaning that small market teams basically can almost never compete, and even if they do they never win the World Series (I think it may have happened once or twice).
  • The officiating is the most maddeningly incompetent in the world (with the possible exception of the NFL), outrageous given how little actual work they do. It’s absolutely staggering how many achievements and outright records (and this is a sport that supposedly takes records seriously) have been denied by bad calls.
  • There’s been a long, long history of shady behavior, punishment being sporadic at best, and that’s just the stuff we know about.
  • Not only has PED use has been rampant for decades, the entire league flat-out looked the other way when it was desperate to bring fans back after the catastrophic '94-'95 strike (oh yeah, that was a thing too), and only very recently has there been any pushback at all.
  • At this point, I’m convinced that the sole purposes of the Hall of Fame are 1. sneeringly denying players for all manner of petty and vindictive reasons, 2. vicious gloating about said denials, and 3. lots of raging debates over whether said denials and/or gloating are deserved. I couldn’t tell you what the “criteria” for induction is with a gun to my head.
  • There are more damn asterisks thrown around than in a ZZT world, all of which has not resulted in not one single record being officially discredited, much less expunged.

As far as the Astros go, what I can’t wrap my head around is how they were doing something incredibly suspicious (unless Stomp is just that huge in the Deep South, which I kind of doubt) , and no one bothered to investigate or even call them out for it for the entire season. And who knows how long this was going on before then. So they win the World Series, and only then is there outrage and indignation and righteous fury and floods of asterisks. Geez, pull the other one, it makes poi. Assuming this wasn’t just a case of teams keeping quiet because they didn’t want their own dirt exposed, either everyone was just so bleedingly oblivious that they failed to see anything wrong with a bunch of very oddly timed jam sessions (and sadly, I can’t count that out), or they knew that blowing the whistle wouldn’t lead to anything meaningful…maybe a fine and a couple sacrificial lambs getting suspensions…and would just make them look like whiners. I also have to think that on some level, sign stealing is one of those things that teams are expected to protect themselves against, and no team wanted to admit to being a victim.

Eh. Don’t have any use for puerile nicknames ever since I stopped watching American Ninja Warrior anyway.