Wonder. It's spring 2017 in Houston, Texas. The Astro's new bench coach, Alex Cora, is hurrying down a

windowless corridor inside Minut Maid Park.

The team is set to take the field in a few hours and Cora is already in his white

Astro's uniform.

But before the game starts, he needs to visit the video replay room, which is located deep within the

boughs of the ballpark. The League ordered teams to install these replay rooms just a few years ago so teams can use instant replays to

challenge umpire's rulings on the field. But the Astros, like other teams in

the league, soon realized that the replay room presented additional opportunities during a game.

For the first few weeks of the season, they've had one of their stadium's cameras focused squarely

on the opposing team's catcher, and someone in the video

room has logged and decoded his signs using code breaker, the Astro's secret

catalog of opposing team's hand signals for different pitches.

And for the past several games opposing team's hand signals for different pitches.

And for the past several games, the Astros have been experimenting with how to relay these

signs to their hitters, but so far the process has been slow and cumbersome.

Someone from the replay room has to call Cora in the dugout on a phone that rings

loudly and tell him the sign sequence.

Then someone in the dugout has to use hand signals to relay the signs to a

runner on second base who has to then signal to the batter what pitch is coming.

It's convoluted and Cora isn't happy with the system. So he's heading to the replay room to talk with a man

who's usually on the other end of the dugout phone, Tom Koch-Vaser, who's in charge of gathering

data about opposing teams.

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