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The Reds scored 710 runs and allowed 653 that year. According to retrosheet.com, the Pythagorean winning percentage (a formula devised by Bill James to estimate a team’s winning percentage given their runs scored and runs allowed) would be .538 (or 83-71 over the course of a season). Instead, the Reds won ninety-three games, or ten more than they would have been expected to. This raises my eyebrows quite a bit.

The Reds finished with a home record of 47-30. If you take away the eleven home games played against Philadelphia, the Reds were 37-29 at home, despite being outscored by thirty-one runs. But no one really got up in arms because the Reds weren’t that much better than everyone else. They actually hit more home runs on the road than at home. They won almost as many games on the road (forty-six) as they did at home. And, like the 1951 Giants, the Reds didn’t win the World Series against the Yankees. In three Series games played in Cincinnati, the Reds lost 3-2, 7-0, and 13-5.

MY OPINION

If the 1961 Cincinnati Reds had defeated the Yankees (the team that went 109-53 and set a Major League record for home runs, led by Mantle and Maris’ combined 115) in the World Series, everyone would have made a much bigger deal out of the signstealing. As it was, Baseball put out a memo against sign stealing that winter. But of course, the Yankees had Bob Turley stealing signs and Whitey Ford scuffing baseballs, so they could hardly have complained. I do believe that the Reds stole the pennant that year, and there was an agreement among the conspirators not to talk about it in the years afterward. How come Hank Aaron and other stars of his era grumble about modern day home run hitters having unfair advantages, but didn’t utter a peep now or then about home run hitters like Frank Robinson (who would later become a league official that oversaw discipline) being tipped off about what pitch would be thrown?

There was a conspiracy in 1961 with the Reds, just as there was a conspiracy in 1951 with the Giants.

In baseball, the offensive team isn’t the only one that bends the rules to give themselves a better chance. There are teams throughout history (most notably the Chicago White Sox in the 1950s) that froze their baseballs. This doesn’t seem to be practical, as any umpiring crew worth its job would throw out any suspiciously cold ball. The most common way for pitchers to conspire is to throw illegal spitballs—with help from their teammates. Hall of Fame pitcher Whitey Ford used to have his catcher Elston Howard scuff the baseball by scraping it against his belt buckle. Catchers—even if they didn’t actively participate in the subterfuge—had to throw the illegally-altered baseballs back to the pitcher, often hiding the evidence from the home-plate umpire.

Pitchers applied Vaseline, K-Y jelly, oily hair tonics, and other slick substances to the balls. Hall of Fame hurler Gaylord Perry did this to great advantage, using gobs of the stuff. Pitchers hid the grease or the Vaseline in several places. They could have hidden it in various cap locations or put some under their thumbnail. They could have hidden the substance in their sideburns, or behind either or both of their earlobes. The hiding places were endless. Some pitchers in the 1980s were caught using emery boards to shave a little off the ball. (If they were caught, well, they could say they just needed the emery board to file their nails!) Two-time American League All-Star Rick Honeycutt even taped a thumbtack to his finger to cut the ball. And the conspiracy in all of this was that the catcher had to know. According to Perry, “I always had a few special signs to let [the catcher] know I was loaded up.”

Because of Perry, a 1974 rule gave umpires the latitude to make a judgment call on whether or not a baseball was loaded up with a foreign substance. Really, though, they can make all the rules they want, but there will always be cheaters, and there will always be pitchers who get away with it. Maybe even on the biggest stage in the world.

In the 2006 World Series, Detroit