Ep 3: Smart Guys

The Edge: Houston Astros

Audacy Studios | Ben Reiter | Prologue Projects

Society & Culture, Documentary, Sports

4.8 • 717 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

One of baseball’s unofficial slogans? “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.” Baseball's history of sign stealing is almost as old as the sport itself. Players have always gone to great lengths to decipher the non-verbal signals that opponents use to communicate on the field: using buried buzzers, military-grade telescopes, even cameras. In 2017, a respected veteran named Carlos Beltran joined the Houston Astros. Aided by the powerful, and largely unregulated, new technologies he had at his disposal, Beltran led the Astros to their long awaited championship – even as defeated rivals, like the Dodgers’ Chase Utley, harbored suspicions about how they’d done it. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	When Carlos Beltron was a young man, he was what is known as a five-tool player.
0:05.9	That meant he could do everything well.
0:08.3	Run, throw, field, hit for average, and hit for power.
0:12.9	But even for someone as physically gifted as he was, baseball success isn't a matter of talent alone.
0:19.9	The Kansas City Royals drafted Beltron from Puerto Rico in
0:23.1	1995 when he was 18. When he arrived on the mainland United States, he often couldn't follow
0:29.4	his coach's instructions because he didn't speak a word of English. During practice, he had to resort
0:35.5	to mimicking what other players were doing.
0:38.3	He told me about it in a February 2018 interview I recorded with my iPhone in an unfortunately
0:43.3	echoey room.
0:45.3	What would you do?
0:46.3	Like, I read that you would, like, stand at the end of line for every drill.
0:50.3	Yeah.
0:51.3	For some, but spin training, where you get a lot of people.
0:58.9	You know, used to be in the back of the outfielders and watch what the guys were doing.
1:01.8	Because you didn't, because you couldn't understand the coach.
1:06.1	I can understand the coach spraying like the drills in the outfield, but I was like, okay,
1:08.1	let me watch these guys see how he does it and try to.
1:12.0	It must be so, I mean, you're thinking about so much else besides what you're supposed to be focusing.
1:15.4	His English improved, and so did his play.
1:19.6	In 1999, he was the American League rookie of the year.
1:21.0	Back goes Griffey.
	...

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