A little boy was tossed a baseball during a game over the weekend but as he failed to catch it, the man behind him snatched it up and took it. One guy carrying the load. But this cheating scandal moment provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the team as a whole over the last 7 years. The office of the commissioner of baseball. Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora was fired. Now New York Mets manager Carlos Beltran is out, as the Astros sign-stealing saga has claimed another job and become one of the biggest scandals in Major.
Before the coronavirus pandemic put a stop to the baseball season and sent games behind closed doors, the Houston Astros were essentially guaranteed a season full of hostility from opposing crowds.
The Astros cheating scandal dominated the offseason, and we were already seeing that hostility play out during spring training before the sport was shut down.
But closed-door games haven't completely shielded the Astros from their much-deserved heckling. Fans will always find a way. https://geatiliber1979.mystrikingly.com/blog/deer-hunter-game-app-cheats. We've seen that play out during the ALCS matchup with the Rays at San Diego's Petco Park.
Reporters at the stadium noticed someone watching the game with a megaphone from a nearby apartment balcony. He was taunting the Astros for the cheating scandal.
According to The New York Times, this fan shouted insults like:
'Attention: Members of the Houston Astros organization that participated in the sign-stealing scandal of 2017 and 2018. You all are a bunch of cheaters. The global baseball community has not forgotten your transgressions against the game.'
Just legendary.
The Times actually caught up with this fan: 30-year-old Chicago White Sox fan, Tim Kanter.
He went as far as to purchase a megaphone that could project sound the approximate 700 feet from his balcony to the field (he did the math to figure out the distance). And Astros second baseman Jose Altuve evidently noticed the heckling as he could be seen turning around and looking towards the outfield as Kanter was speaking.
We haven't been able to find video of Kanter's antics, but plenty of reporters heard it.
You have to respect that effort from a totally neutral fan who just wanted to shame the Astros for cheating. Well done, Tim.
He'll have another chance during Thursday's Game 5.
We're just a couple weeks removed from MLB issuing its punishment for the Houston Astros cheating scandal, and there's still new information being uncovered about the team's sign-stealing tactics.
It was clear that the Astros were paranoid about being caught in the act.
By now, all baseball fans know the story. Starting with the 2017 season, the Astros had a team employee relay signs to hitters from a dugout hallway by beating the hell out of a trash can — all while watching a live feed on a monitor. They won the World Series in 2017.
Still, the Astros got caught, lost draft picks and faced a maximum fine. Manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were fired after being suspended.
In a comprehensive study on signstealingscandal.com, every pitch from 2017 Astros home games (with available video) was analyzed. In the 8,200-plus pitches analyzed, the site found that a banging noise could be heard for around 1,100 pitches.
But take a look at the Sept. 21 game against the White Sox, which had 41 bangs followed by a complete drop-off on Sept. 22 against the Angels. That Sept. 21 matchup is intriguing because it was the game that the Astros nearly got caught in the act by pitcher Danny Farquhar.
https://geatiliber1979.mystrikingly.com/blog/is-windows-magnification-feature-in-games-cheating. At the time, Farquhar took notice to the noise and was wholly aware that the Astros had his signs with Evan Gattis at the plate and no runners on base. Farquhar conferred with his catcher to switch up the signs, and he had this to say, via The Athletic:
Guy Who Was Cheating At Baseball Game Tonight
'There was a banging from the dugout, almost like a bat hitting the bat rack every time a changeup signal got put down,' said Farquhar, who is now the pitching coach with the White Sox's High-A affiliate in Winston-Salem, N.C. 'After the third one, I stepped off. I was throwing some really good changeups and they were getting fouled off. After the third bang, I stepped off.'
It certainly appeared that the Astros were concerned about word spreading from Farquhar's suspicions as the team hit pause on the tactics the very next day. The Astros knew exactly what they were doing, and that it was cheating. That much was clear. Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone from near-peak, trash-can banging to nothing in a day.
Guy Cheating At Baseball Game
In all, the study is worth checking out. It includes pitch-by-pitch breakdowns with video.
