You can't make up stuff like this. Baseball establishment, media, players, fans, ... must be morons. Most are foaming at the mouth demanding that the Houston Astros be punished severely, including any Buck Weaver types, those who may have known but failed to report. Hey, wouldn't that include the former Astros like Mike Fiers (2015-2017) who are now informing on their old teammates and who also benefited financially and are only now speaking up, sort of, when they might be put at a disadvantage while playing for their new team (Fiers: Oakland, same division as Astros, 2018-2019).
None, and I mean none, except yours truly, have even hinted at solving the entire problem by using and not banning technology that has been in use in the much more complex game of football, as in the National Football League (NFL).
How do the headsets in quarterback helmets work?
The QB helmet radio exists thanks to two Browns fans with a top-secret plan
By SBN Studios Updated Apr 30, 2017
... the sideline communications system we're all familiar with was banned by the NFL for almost 40 years...
... 1994 NFL season ... the first to use the QB radio system league-wide
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Insider Knowledge: NFL coach-to-player communication
Jeff Blair | @SNJeffBlair January 22, 2016
Not only were the Browns once a dynasty, they were four decades ahead in using radio communication between the sidelines and quarterback. In 1956, Ohio inventors George Sarles and John Campbell developed a radio receiver to fit inside the helmet of Browns quarterback George Ratterman. The system lasted for four games, before the Detroit Lions coaching staff noticed odd substitution patterns, sent somebody to snoop around the Browns sidelines and found a transmitter. Yikes. NFL commissioner Bert Bell was not amused, and it wasn’t until 1994 that the league allowed radio communication between the sidelines and the quarterback. It was 14 more years before communication was allowed with a designated defensive player...
WHY DO IT?
When the play clock was reduced from 45 to 40 seconds in 1993, coaches and general managers complained they were burning timeouts getting plays sent in.
In 1994, according to the NFL, between eight and 15 seconds were saved on play calls with the new system in place.
Each offensive and defensive team is allowed one player on the field with a radio receiver in his helmet, allowing him to communicate with a coach on the sidelines, not in the coach’s booth. Each team is permitted to have three active radio receivers in helmets worn by quarterbacks—a QB who plays another position as well, say as a “wildcat,” must have two separate helmets—and a maximum of two for defensive players: one for a primary defender, the other for a designated backup player. The helmets are identified by a decal on the back.
The NFL has a game-day coordinator whose job is to make sure both teams are operating on their assigned frequency, and according to McKenna-Doyle, the league must coordinate frequencies before every game with one of the FCC’s local “Earth stations”; it needs FCC clearance for the power of the frequency being used at each game. The NFL uses digital radio—it switched from analog in 2012—and the league will likely move to voice over IP in the future, according to McKenna-Doyle.
YEAH, BUT …
How secure is the system, really? As secure as possible, on an open frequency. Communication is encrypted, and those stories about police signals or air-traffic signals being heard by QBs are urban myth, though a stadium located next to an airport or television station does present different issues...
The rules are simple: Communication between coach and player is cut off automatically with 15 seconds left on the play clock by the game-day coordinator, and if one team’s system fails, the other team does not have to shut its system down. If you really want to know, there is an easy toggle switch that allows the coach communicating with the player to switch over to communication with the head coach or coordinator. And, yeah, the headphones are Bose noise-cancelling headphones.
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Eliminating signs, eliminates sign stealing ... and speeds up the game. Friday, November 15, 2019
Duh.
... the catcher on each team use his fingers to send signs to the pitchers ... is an absurd anachronism, one which should make MLB embarrassed...
Don't ban technology, use it to solve this silly problem...
With all the online betting and with professional leagues complicit in that betting, MLB has much bigger problems than protecting the finger signals of it's catchers...
The NFL coach tells the quarterback every play through communications equipment in the helmet of the quarterback...
The Astros should be punished. It's doubtful that championships will be vacated, so whatever is done is unlikely to be much of a deterrent. It's analogous to use of performance enhancing drugs (PED) by the players. The risk-reward was so skewed that temptation was too great for many, if not most.
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