Sports, significantly beyond high school competition, have a problem of concern: cheating. There have been well-known cheating scandals that have reached the public in the past century. Mark McGwire and others using steroids in MLB, the New England Patriots infamous “Spygate” scandal in the NFL, Tim Donaghy trying to cover the point spread in NBA games and plenty more. But one cheating method has taken over sports over the past decade more than any other: sign stealing and it is ruining the reputation of sports teams.
Sign stealing has become so relevant that teams have instituted complex sign systems so the opposition can not see what they plan to do next. However, there are still actions that can improve how to protect those signs. The incident that sparked the interest in investing in better sign protection was the 2017 Houston Astros.
You can “steal” and decode signs from the opposing team in baseball’s unwritten rules. But in Winter Meetings in 1961, the National League banned using mechanical devices to decipher signals. Later, in 2001, Sandy Alderson, then-executive vice president of baseball operations of MLB, banned mechanical devices in both leagues. The Houston Astros stole signs electronically in 2017. Astros coaches placed a camera in center field at their home stadium, Minute Maid Park. This camera would send direct footage to a TV monitor in their dugout. Once the coaches decoded signs, they would bang on a trash can to indicate to the batter whether it was a fastball or an offspeed pitch.
The sign-stealing scandal from the Astros resulted in a significant punishment from MLB, costing them $5 million, plus their first and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021. The announcement of this scandal and punishment resulted in players, coaches and fans lashing out at the Astros organization. This hatred is still heard to this day every game from fans.
Furthermore, the University of Michigan football team is amid a sign-stealing scandal that has reached the public eye. The Big Ten Conference has accused the team of using technology to steal signs from their opposition. As a result, Jim Harbaugh, the head coach for the Wolverines, has been suspended for the remainder of the regular season.
The Astros and the Wolverines are now “the villains” of the respective sports they play. Fans now show zero support to the recent allegations against the Wolverines have led to enough rage—fans still press the Astros for their cheating scandal.
Although the Astros cheated in 2017, almost all the players on that team are not playing for them anymore. The Astros are a new team with the players they have now and are still contending for championships year after year. We should move on from this and put it in the rearview mirror as we look forward to this new era of sports that uses precise analytics, advanced sign combinations, faster and stronger athletes and more excitement than ever around all sports. There is no reason to dwell on the past when the future is so bright.
