Nuckols: A century after Black Sox Scandal, baseball cheating goes high-tech
From Ben Nuckols at the Associated Press on October 24, 2019, with mention of SABR member Jacob Pomrenke:
A century after the Black Sox scandal that tarnished the World Series and ushered in major changes in baseball, the notion that millionaire ballplayers would take money to throw a game — much less the World Series — is all but unthinkable.
But that doesn’t mean cheating in baseball is a thing of the past, and there are still concerns about gambling affecting the integrity of the sport.
Today’s scandals revolve around technology — from teams using Apple Watches or high-definition cameras to steal signs to rogue “data scouts” giving bookmakers real-time information from ballparks. It’s hard to gauge how widespread these practices are, but players and managers are paranoid about tech-driven cheating, with teams hurling accusations at one another as recently as this year’s American League Championship Series.
MLB is doing its best to adapt its rulebook to the tech, hoping to keep the sport honest as it failed to do 100 years ago.
Read the full article here: https://www.apnews.com/939c1dfea4064cf4a712e4ad400fc32c
- Related link: Listen to highlights from the 2019 SABR Black Sox Scandal Centennial Symposium in Chicago
Originally published: October 25, 2019. Last Updated: October 25, 2019.