Use technology, don't ban it, to fix things. Like sign stealing.

Geez, come on. Baseball people, including most fans, want to return to the dark ages. Pretty much everyone, including commissioner Rob Manfred, have taken the position that technology in the clubhouse during games should be banned.

Argh!

What's currently driving this, of course, is the sign stealing "scandal/crisis". Attributing the core of it to technology is absurd in the extreme. Banging a trash can is not technological. Is using a video camera functionally different from using binoculars or a telescope? And they're not electrical.

Functionally, the 2017-2019 Houston Astros were cheating in the same way as the 1951 New York Giants. Unless the Giants manager Leo Durocher was using something like:



NFL banned communications system 40 years: 1950s-1990s. MLB ... Tuesday, November 19, 2019

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 ...

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).
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Google Glass could be considered. Here's a low tech idea:

Buzzer solution to sign stealing. Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Obviously, if there are no signs, there is no sign stealing.

The most recent means of delivering the ill attained information was allegedly through a buzzer on the body of the batter...

The team management increasingly wants control, including calling the pitches. That's not really new. A simple buzzer system controlled by the field manager and/or pitching coach could tell the pitcher and catcher simultaneously the pitch to be delivered. There could be two pieces of information: pitch type and location.

Other team members could also be equipped, especially the infielders.
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Eliminating signs, eliminates sign stealing ... and speeds up the game. Friday, November 15, 2019

Duh.

The Houston Astros are accused of using technology to "steal" catcher's signs, interpret them and relay them to Astros batters before the pitch is delivered.

Some of the descriptions of these activities defy logic but that's not the point of this post, which is that having the catcher on each team use his fingers to send signs to the pitchers for each of about 150 pitches per game per team is an absurd anachronism, one which should make MLB embarrassed.

Don't ban technology, use it to solve this silly problem...

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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Showing posts with label Signs.