The Red Sox are Accused of Using Cameras to Steal Signs. I'm Sure John Henry's Newspaper Will Get to the Bottom of This

Source - The sign-stealing scandal that, to date, has primarily focused on the Houston Astros has widened. Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic [Writer's note: Paywall] report that the 2018 Boston Red Sox had a video-enabled operation of their own: 

"Three people who were with the Red Sox during their 108-win 2018 season told The Athletic that during that regular season, at least some players visited the video replay room during games to learn the sign sequence opponents were using. The replay room is just steps from the home dugout at Fenway Park, through the same doors that lead to the batting cage. Every team’s replay staff travels to road games, making the system viable in other parks as well."

They report that the system was not useful during the postseason due to MLB personnel monitoring the replay room and due to other teams being wary enough of sign-stealing that they constantly changed signs.

The key part of this, though, is that this all came after Major League Baseball cracked down on use of replay officials in sign-stealing operations in the wake of the infamous Apple Watch scandal in 2017. That led to fines of Red Sox personnel and the implicit warning that, going forward, using video to steal signs would be dealt with harshly.

This also comes in the wake of Rob Manfred saying, in November, that he did not believe that the sign-stealing scandal then engulfing the Astros extended beyond Houston. That seemed like a silly whitewash at the time, but seems like even more of a whitewash now.

Do I believe that this is true and the Red Sox used the video replay booth to steal signs during the winningest season in team history? Absolutely. It strains credulity to think Alex Cora could be on the bench for an Astros team that won a World Series using cameras to steal signs one year, and then the next come to Boston and say "There'll be no cameras used to steal signs around here. Not on MY watch. To do so would be wrong." And Rob Manfred claiming the practice was limited to just the 2017 Astros is as preposterous as David Stern saying Tim Donaghy was one, rogue, lone wolf referee shaving points. Just 100% PR lies told to limit the damage. Like Russian officials trying to contain the Chernobyl fallout. 

More importantly, do I care that Alex Cora probably used cameras to steal signs. No. Not even a little. I won't burn a single calorie worrying about it. I've seen that 2018 World Series trophy and Houston's '17 trophy and they look exactly like all the others. And they're not being taken away by anybody. And if you were to take away all the trophies of all the teams who cheated to gain and edge, you could make a Smaug bed with them. Scuffing balls. Spitballs. Vaseline balls. Corked bats. Pine tar. PEDs. To me it's all the same. Trying to out cheat your opponent is as much a part of the game as shifts and has been around since Ty Cobb first put his spikes into someone's balls. 

Sign stealing is as old as signs. It's the reason you use signs. And using TV cameras to steal signs probably started as soon as Philo T. Farnsworth invented the image dissector and the cathode ray tube. 

So yes. As a Red Sox fan, this story means less than nothing to me. Maybe Alex Cora will get suspended for a while. Or someone will have to pay a fine. Either way life will go on and the team will be in the capable hands of an Irishman from Weymouth. Which is all anyone could ever ask of anything. 

My reason for bringing it up here is how John Henry will respond to this. Since his Boston Globe is on record as being shocked and appalled at the idea of any team using cameras to spy on other teams. The record is very clear on this:

The Globies all agree. Using a camera is lewd, lacivious, salacious, outrageous! And John Henry has my full faith and confidence that his paper will be just as livid over the team he owns doing it as the one an hour south on Rte 1. After all, it's not like he has a lingering resentment over the Patriots taking the focus off his accomplishments. Just because he was suing the state of Florida for the right to post illegally obtained video of his "friend's" wang, 

Or because he sicced his investigative teams on Tom Brady to prove he steals money from the Special Needs kids he raises millions for. Or because his paper prints stuff like this:

Because having a double standard between a successful team you own and a successful team you don't own for doing the exact same thing is way more wrong than stealing signs with a TV camera.

So I for one am looking forward to Henry's Boston Globe's nonstop, hard-hitting, wall-to-wall investigative journalism on his topic. I mean, it's just the biggest story in MLB at the moment and Boston dot com's Red Sox page doesn't have a word about it. 

But I'm sure it's coming. That Babe Ruth story couldn't wait.