The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time - Elliott Kalb [65]
The Giants were hardly the only baseball team to steal signs, but they became the most noteworthy because of the time and place of the dramatic home run. No less than ten years later, it appeared that there was just as much evidence to conclude that the Cincinnati Reds won the 1961 National League pennant in the same fashion as the 1951 Giants had.
HOW THE 1961 CINCINNATI REDS STOLE THE NATINAL LEAGUE PENNANT
Both the 1951 Giants and the 1961 Reds finished ahead of the Dodgers, then lost the World Series to the Yankees. Both stole signs in their home ballpark, from a station in deep center field. The similarities are remarkable.
Jay Hook pitched for the Reds until he was moved to the Mets in the 1962 expansion draft. In spring training with the Mets, Hook accused Brooks Lawrence (a former teammate with the Reds who had last played in 1960 and had served as a scout in 1961), of stealing signs for the Reds in their pennant-winning season. Hook said the Reds had Lawrence posted in the center field scoreboard at Crosley Field at some home games, and that Lawrence relayed information by telephone to a coach in the Cincinnati dugout, who would then relay signals to the Reds batters.
Lawrence, who passed away in 2000, denied the accusations at the time, saying that he used to slip into the scoreboard before games for a smoke, but couldn’t see anything. I call this the “smoke signal” defense (where there’s smoke, there’s also sign stealing).
The Reds manager at the time, Fred Hutchinson, who passed away in 1964, issued a “no comment.” After that 1961 season, National League President Warren Giles warned that he would forfeit any game won with the aid of mechanical devices.
Reds relief pitcher Jim Brosnan admitted the scheme to author Richard Lally in Bombers: An Oral History of the New York Yankees (2002). Brosnan admitted that then-manager Hutchinson assigned then-coach Otis Douglas to be on the phone in the dugout. When he would holler or chatter at a batter, it was a sign of an incoming fastball. The former Reds pitcher said his teammates knew every pitch that was coming, but it hardly mattered against the 1961 Yanks—one of the greatest teams of all time.
WAS THERE A MOTIVE FOR THE REDS TO STEAL Signs?
Yes. In my opinion, the Reds likely wouldn’t have made it to the World Series without cheating.
The Reds simply were not a very good team. In 1960, the Reds won only sixty-seven games. The next year, they increased their wins to ninety-three, earning a trip to the World Series. The Reds had two great batters in those days, and both Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson remained healthy in both seasons (Robinson/Pinson combined for 1,116 at-bats in 1960, and 1,152 in 1961), so essentially, a team comprised of mostly the same players improved by twenty-six wins in just one season.
Cincinnati won the pennant with their regular lineup: Jerry Zimmerman as catcher and Gordy Coleman, Don Blasingame, Gene Freese, and Eddie Kasko on the infield. They beat out a Dodgers team that included stars like Drysdale, Koufax, Maury Wills, Gil Hodges, and others. They beat out the Mays-McCovey- Cepeda-led San Francisco Giants. And they beat out Hank Aaron’s Braves, the team that had won National League pennants in 1957 and 1958, and finished second in 1959 and 1960.
That the Reds won was a fluke. They played the 107-loss Philadelphia Phillies twenty-two times that summer, and won nineteen of the twenty-two contests. Against everyone else, the Reds were