Major League Baseball Spring Training has started this past February and yet the season started on a different note. It was plagued by the notion of cheating leaving a lot of fans with bad tastes in their mouth. This offseason MLB did an investigation of the Astros cheating scandal after former pitcher, disgraced world champion, and whistleblower Mike Fiers, said that the Astros cheated in 2017. There has been a lot of debate about how the game of baseball has cheating to get ahead in the game.
Baseball has a lot of unwritten rules. You hit a batter on the opposing team if one of your players gets thrown at, you never bunt to get a hit if the opposing pitcher is throwing a no-hitter or perfect game, you never walk over the pitcher’s mound after coming back to the dugout, things like that. Every team does cheat, but not in the way you would think. The Astros stole signs from catchers and pitchers via cameras to gain an advantage of what pitch was coming next so that the batter could be better prepared. This “stealing signs” idea is not new teams have been doing it for decades. It is easy to see the catcher’s hand signals if a runner is on second base, so the runner will signal to the batter what pitch is coming. That is considered in the baseball world as ok, because it is information gained by working towards it. It is said the hardest thing to do in sports is to hit a round object squarely with another round object, therefore, it’s pretty hard to hit a baseball even if you’re a professional ballplayer.
MLB did an investigation with findings that the Astros were cheating via outfield cameras, monitors, garbage cans and wireless buzzers. Seems like a lot more work to have that set up than to actually play the game of baseball if you ask me. As someone who has played the game for 19 years, stealing signs isn’t cheating, its being aware of the situation and how to understand your opponent, also it means your opponent isn’t good at hiding their signs. Both teams are vulnerable to it. While most sports are contact, baseball is a game of observation, you need to see the pitch, see how the players are positioned, see the lead a runner has on a base.
The Astros world series title should be taken from them because they used devices and people outside of the players to get ahead. It is a disgrace to the game of baseball, and unfortunately in this case the cheaters won and walked away with little to no punishment and will play March 26 against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
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