Astros and Asterisks

Houston's Sign-Stealing Scandal Explained

Buch | Softcover

280 Seiten

2023
University of Texas Press (Verlag)
978-1-4773-2743-2 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

An in-depth and multiperspectival look at the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal and its roots in the culture of baseball fandom.

In 2017 the Houston Astros won their first World Series title, a particularly uplifting victory for the city following Hurricane Harvey. But two years later, the feel-good energy was gone after The Athletic revealed that the Astros had stolen signs from opposing catchers during their championship season, perhaps even during the playoffs and World Series. Their methods were at once high-tech and crude: staff took video of opponents’ pitching signals and transmitted the footage in real time to the Astros’ dugout, where players banged on trash cans to signal to their teammates at bat which pitches were coming their way. Wry observers labeled them the Asterisks, pointing to the title that no longer seemed so earned.

Astros and Asterisks examines the scandal from historical, journalistic, legal, ethical, and cultural perspectives. Authors delve into the Astros’ winning-above-all attitude, cultivated by a former McKinsey consultant; the significance of hiring a pitcher recently suspended for domestic abuse; the career-ending effects of the Astros’ transgression on opposing players; and the ethically fraught choices necessary to participate in sign-stealing. Ultimately, it links the Astros’ choices to the sporting world’s obsession with analytics. What emerges is a sobering tale about the impact of new technology on a game whose romanticized image feels increasingly incongruous with its reality in the era of big data and video.

Jonathan Silverman is a professor of English at UMass Lowell. He is the coauthor of Johnny Cash International: How and Why Fans Love the Man in Black and author of Nine Choices: Johnny Cash and American Culture.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Timeline
Part I. Histories of Cheating in Baseball

Chapter 1. Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Cheating: Blame It on the Pitchers (Steven Gietschier)
Chapter 2. Cheating versus Gamesmanship: Ethical Relativism in Baseball? (George Gmelch)
Chapter 3. “This Is Not a Cultural Issue”: The Astros’ (and Baseball’s) Willingness to Overlook Domestic Violence (Katherine Murray)
Chapter 4. Round Up the Usual Suspects: Cheating in Baseball (Richard Crepeau)

Part II. The Scandal Unfolds

Chapter 5. Finally, a Fun Baseball Scandal (Will Leitch)
Chapter 6. What Is the Sound of One Bat Slapping? Reading the Houston Astros’ Trash Can (Roberta Newman)
Chapter 7. Blame Is a Tangled Mess in Astros Sign-Stealing Scandal (Evan Drellich)

Part III. Fans and the Scandal

Chapter 8. Interview with a Bang Counter: A Q&A with Tony Adams (
Chapter 9. Reckoning with Tainted Love: What the Astros Scandal Reveals of Sports Fandom (Matthew Klugman)
Chapter 10. “To Learn Baseball”: A Transatlantic Dialogue on the Astros and the American Ways of Winning (Michael Hinds and Joseph Rivera)

Part IV. The Scandal and Its Ethical Dilemmas

Chapter 11. Baseball Has No Love for Truth Tellers (Mitchell Nathanson)
Chapter 12. Bad Apples or Bad Astros? Collective Responsibility and the Perils of Team Loyalty (Erin Tarver)
Chapter 13. From Protector to Whistleblower: Being a “Good” Teammate When Cheating Occurs (Allison R. Levin and Matthew Staker)

Part V. Technology and the Scandal

Chapter 14. Stealing Signs: Technology, Surveillance and Policing inside and outside the Game (Dain TePoel and Eileen Narcotta-Welp)
Chapter 15. The Spreadsheet in the Garden: Analytics and the Sign-Stealing Scandal (Jonathan Silverman)

Appendix: “Defendant Houston Astros”: Michael Bolsinger vs. The Houston Astros
Contributors
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	03.07.2023
Reihe/Serie	Terry and Jan Todd Series on Physical Culture and Sports
Verlagsort	Austin, TX
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	367 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport ► Ballsport
Themenwelt	Weitere Fachgebiete ► Sportwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-4773-2743-6 / 1477327436
ISBN-13	978-1-4773-2743-2 / 9781477327432
Zustand	Neuware