Sign-stealing in baseball: the Houston Astros’ cheating vs. Chapman baseball’s gamesmanship

Houston Astros player Alex Bregman, right. The Astros were widely condemned after allegations broke in November 2019 that they’d used cameras in the outfield to steal opposing teams’ signs, yet Chapman baseball readily discussed the legal use of sign-stealing in their series earlier in the 2020 season against East Texas Baptist University. WikiCommons

In the game of baseball, a batter getting a hit three out of 10 times he steps up to the plate is widely considered elite. Yet, if a hitter knows what pitch is coming – if he knows the pitcher will throw a fastball or an off-speed pitch – he can potentially boost those figures through simple anticipation.

Earlier this 2020 season, Chapman baseball beat East Texas Baptist University (ETBU) in a three-game series Feb. 14 and 15. The Panthers had decoded ETBU’s pitching signs by analyzing their behavior from previous games, all because of an old sheet of paper.

When they discovered this piece of paper, Chapman was in the third and final game of that Feb. 15 series against ETBU. Quickly, they realized they’d written down and decoded their opposition’s signals from games the prior season that the catcher was relaying the pitcher through hand gestures – and realized that ETBU hadn’t changed these signals since last year. With this discovery, Chapman was able to finish a strong series with an authoritative 15-13 victory.

“It’s like boxing with your opponent having one fist tied behind their back,” said Kevin Gregerson, Chapman senior catcher, of sign-stealing.

Why is Gregerson so willing to admit this? In 2017, the Houston Astros persevered through the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and went on to win the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series. Yet, in November 2019, their social credibility was destroyed when allegations arose that the Astros had implemented a complex system of technology to steal opposing teams’ signs. There’s a particular difference in how Chapman went about their thievery.

“We had their signs through legal means,” Gregerson said. “We kept the papers that we wrote down from the previous year. We didn’t use any type of video camera to relay signs through a program that we built.” Of course, stealing signs goes both ways. Though the practice helped Chapman in their series against ETBU, it was their downfall in a recent series against California Lutheran University Feb. 28 and 29. Again, it was all legal in baseball terms.

“There were several times against (California Lutheran) where they were on second (base) and got our sequence and we had to go change it,” head coach Scott Laverty said. “The difference (between that and the Astros) is that we weren’t using anything that can’t be seen. It’s all on the field there.”

Laverty was alluding to the Astros purposefully building technology to give themselves a competitive advantage. Cameras were placed in the outfield of their Minute Maid Park that read the catcher’s signals to the pitcher. Astros players in the dugout would then relay them to their batter by banging a trash can with a baseball bat. Ultimately, it was a system that turned an accepted form of gamesmanship into cheating. “Stealing signs via (runners) on second base is something that’s considered legal in the game of baseball,” said Joe Jimenez, senior catcher for Chapman. “As soon as you take that step of using electronics, it’s frustrating for players, fans and everyone who played the Astros.”

Ultimately, professional players have demonstrated mixed emotions about the ethics of stealing signs. Since the news about the Astros broke, debate has raged across social media on whether the Astros should be formally stripped of their championship. Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner and Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout, have publicly criticized Major League Baseball’s commissioner for his lack of severity in enforcing punishments on the Houston organization. While many fans believe the Astros should have their title revoked, Chapman players weren’t so sure.

Kevin Gregersen, a senior Chapman catcher, believes that stripping the Astros of their championship would force Major League Baseball to make many more controversial decisions regarding the league’s history.

“Do I think the title should be stripped? No,” Gregersen said. “If you look at baseball, there’s a lot of tainted pasts. You’d have to strip titles for teams in the early 1900s, you’d have to kick out a bunch of Hall of Famers and remove awards.”

Sophomore catcher Cooper Foard also wasn’t sure if the Astros should lose their title. He instead offered a compromise that would allow Houston its championship while acknowledging critics of their circumstance.

“I don’t know if they should lose the title,” Foard said. “It may be one of those things where there’s an asterisk in the history books forever.”