The Magicians Who Solved MLB's Sign Stealing Problem
The Lead
Audible
3.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2022
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
Baseball season is just a week old, but we’ve already been hearing a lot about a new technology that allows MLB pitchers and catchers to communicate with the push of a button, and thereby prevent sign-stealing -- PitchCom. And it turns out, the seemingly magical technology was, in fact, invented by two magicians. Today, The Athletic’s Zach Buchanan introduces us to those two magicians, describes how their gizmo works (without giving away all of its secrets), and explains why these two, of all people, are the ones who seem to have solved one of baseball’s oldest problems.
Read Zach Buchanan's full story about PitchCom:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, prime members, you can listen to the lead ad-free on Amazon Music. |
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| 0:06.4 | Hey everyone, this is Dr. Rongan Chatechee from the Built to Thrive Podcast, and I promise |
| 0:13.4 | you that if you give me just five minutes of your time, I'm going to help you revolutionize |
| 0:18.6 | your life. |
| 0:19.8 | My aim is to inspire and empower you with simple daily hacks that will help you feel better |
| 0:25.5 | and thrive. |
| 0:27.1 | Check out my latest Built to Thrive episode, Streaming Now, only on Amazon Music. |
| 0:40.6 | During this young MLB season, we've been hearing a lot about a new technology. |
| 0:45.6 | Major League Baseball going high tech in an effort to prevent cheating. |
| 0:50.7 | The lead will allow pictures and catchers to use an electronic signaling system. |
| 0:55.6 | It's known as the pitchcom system. |
| 0:58.2 | The catcher wears this small gadget while the pitcher hides a listening device in his |
| 1:03.1 | ball cap. |
| 1:04.1 | pitchcom has now been tested by 21 clubs during spring training, with some front players |
| 1:09.4 | giving it ray of reviews. |
| 1:10.9 | Today, the Athletic Secretary Cannon introduces us to the two guys who invented pitchcom, |
| 1:16.8 | two magicians, and how they became the ones to solve one of Baseball's oldest problems. |
| 1:22.3 | We're almost like the perfect fit to come up with a solution of how you would accidentally |
| 1:27.4 | do this. |
| 1:28.4 | Because we've done all the things that they've tried before. |
| 1:31.4 | We've already done some things and we know that they don't work. |
... |
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