A Boston team caught spying on a New York team, sound familiar? Well Tom Brady nor Bill Belichick are involved in this story. The Boston Red Sox have confirmed that the team did indeed steal signs during their series against the New York Yankees. While stealing signs is nothing new in baseball, the Red Sox went super modern and used Apple watches to do it!
According to The New York Times, Major League Baseball investigators discovered that Boston devised a plan to steal signs from opposing catchers. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman brought a detailed complaint against the Red Sox to the commissioner’s office after the two teams met last month. A video allegedly showing a member of the Red Sox training staff looking at his Apple Watch and then relaying a message to players, possibly about what pitch to expect. (Schmidt 2017)
MLB investigators that the video was proof that Boston was attempting to gain an advantage. When the commissioner’s office confronted the team, they admitted their trainers received information that was relayed to players. They also admitted that this did not start against the Yankees, instead they had been doing it for weeks.
Yesterday, in a shocking turn of events, the Red Sox filed their own complaint against the Yankees claiming they tried to steal the Red Sox’s signs using a camera from YES Network which broadcasts all Yankees games. Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball have now entered the problem that most companies eventually run into in the 21st century, technology. Stealing signs is nothing new, but using technology to do it is interesting because how can the league police that?
The league already had to deal with the St. Louis Cardinals former scouting director Chris Correa hacking into the Houston Astros database. Correa is currently serving a four year sentence for his actions and the Cardinals had to pay a pretty hefty fee to the Astros because of it. The Cardinals had to pay Houston $2 million and give up two of their top picks in this past draft. People in the league, however, do not expect Boston to face a big penalty for their actions. Manfred will have to do something so teams do not think about using technology in the future to gain an advantage over competition.
Currently the Red Sox lead the AL East by 3.5 games, as of the time this article was written. The Yankees are in the first Wild Card spot with a 2.5 game lead over the Angels and Twins who are both tied for the second spot. The Yankees and Red Sox do not meat for the remainder of the season so there could be some bad blood carried into next season, unless of course these two teams meet in the playoffs.
