The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time - Elliott Kalb [64]
But players at bat can’t steal signs alone; they need help from co-conspirators. In an effort to get a better idea of the location and velocity of the pitch, offensive players can steal signs from the defense. And, unlike the doctoring of pitches, there is no official rule in the books against sign stealing. The most famous sign stealing incident in baseball history concerns the New York Giants, who overcame a thirteen-game deficit to the Brooklyn Dodgers to win the National League pennant in the final weeks of the season in 1951.
The three-game playoff to determine the National League champion ended with Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ’Round the World,” the most famous home run in baseball history. In January of 2001, an article by Joshua Prager appeared in the Wall Street Journal that quoted three Giants players admitting that the Giants stole signs by means of a buzzer which sounded in the Giants’ bullpen. The three Giants players that initially spilled the beans were Monty Irvin, Sal Yvars, and Al Gettel. It’s important to remember that there was no written rule against sign stealing.
The Giants played their home games at the Polo Grounds in Harlem, where the home clubhouse was located deep in center field, complete with an unobstructed view of the opposing catcher. Beginning in July of 1951, the Giants’ placed someone (either coach Herman Franks or infielder Hank Schenz) in the clubhouse to steal signs using a high powered telescope or binoculars hidden in a mesh grid along the distant wall. They would buzz the bullpen once or twice, depending on whether a fastball or curve was coming. Backup catcher Yvars was the tip-off guy, signaling the batter by the simplest of means: tossing a ball up in the air.
After reading Joshua Prager’s Echoing the Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca, and the Shot Heard ’Round the World (2006), it seems clear that the Giants indeed cheated, and conspired for fifty years to keep it a secret. There are hints of Watergate involved in this conspiracy—the Giants hired an electrician to wire a connection between the clubhouse window and the Giants bullpen, within easy sight of the batters—and of course, an elaborate cover-up.
The Giants stole signals in the final two months of their furious comeback, but did Thomson receive a signal before his dramatic, pennant-winning home run? It appears that he did. When asked in 2001 if he received the sign, he responded that it was basically impossible to stand in the batter’s box and not get it. When asked if he took the sign on the 0-1 pitch, Thomson said, “I’d have to say more no than yes.” He was being honest, although he let an honorable man and pitcher, Ralph Branca, believe for all those years that the home run was hit fair and square.
I really don’t think the Giants needed to steal signs to win the 1951 pennant. In late May, they called up a rookie named Willie Mays, who was standing on deck when Thomson hit his home run. Thomson had hit a home run off Branca in the first game of the playoff series as well, in a game played in Brooklyn. That home run was obviously on the level. Thomson hit nine of his thirty-two home runs that season off Dodgers pitching. Was he signaled on any of the others that were hit at the Polo Grounds?
The game on October 3, 1951, was dramatic. I believe it was the first nationally televised non-World Series game. It was a thrilling finish to a thrilling season at a time when baseball faced no real competition from professional football, basketball, or hockey. But the Dodgers didn’t lose the pennant because Thomson was tipped off.
First off, the Dodgers made a poor choice upon winning a season-ending coin toss. It was their decision to play either the first game in Brooklyn, or the last two. They chose to