Conspiracy theories, they’re hard not to enjoy even if they are completely out to lunch.
The latest has the Toronto Blue Jays being accused of having a person in the centre-field seats relaying pitch signals to them in an ESPN The Magazine expose.
It’s the grassy knoll all over again, but instead of a president getting assassinated the Blue Jays’ character is the target.
The man’s positioning was even described like this: “It’s premeditated,” said one of the AL players, “as if the guy was a sniper trying to find the best position to make a shot.”
First lets look at the logistics of it all.
The catcher calls for a pitch by flashing his fingers between his legs and then within a matter of a few seconds, the pitcher delivers. In the meantime somebody who has been starring at the catcher’s crotch all game has to pick up the signal, understand what is being called and then radio out to some guy in the bleachers who then signals himself the Blue Jay in the batter’s box. The ESPN story says the four relievers of the visiting team said they could not figure out how the man was getting the pitch that was called and that he must be getting it radioed to him. In other words he was not spying with binoculars.
The batter meanwhile, has to pick the man in the white shirt out of the crowd as far as 500 feet away and probably 20 feet in the air, see his signal, understand it and try to bring their focus back to the pitcher 60.5 feet away in time to pick up the pitch itself and time his swing correctly.
It makes my mind spin just thinking about it.
To give you an idea of how far fetched it is, one of the pitchers texted Curtis Granderson of the New York Yankees, who were coming in next to play the Blue Jays, and warned him. From the dugout, which he estimated at 300-400 feet away from the man’s location and with all the time in the world to sit and study the crowd, he could find no one.
What really gets the authors of the story up in a rage is the home run disparity for the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre where they see roughly a 50 per cent increase in their home runs per at bat rate over their rate on the road in 2010 while visiting teams saw no such increase.
This of course means that beyond the young Toronto hitters feeling a whole lot more comfortable at home, they want you to forget that the Blue Jays had one of the top rotations in the league last year led by Shawn Marcum.
They also want you to forget that the Blue Jays could not hit for average at all last season. They had an overall team average of .248, 10th in the American League. At home they hit just .254, away it was .243. Over the course of a 162 game season it is hardly a suspicious difference. One would think there would be a considerable jump in their batting averages as well if they knew what pitch was coming. The New York Yankees, for example, hit .279 in the Bronx last season and just .256 away from Yankee Stadium.
What this comes down to is a statistical anomaly.
A fluke, like having six no-hitters thrown in the course of 2010, the most since 1991.
One also has to look at the fact that no one was willing to go on record with their accusations, just four unnamed relief pitchers from a visiting team.
That team, it was revealed on Wednesday, was the Chicago White Sox — as one of the pitchers had confronted Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista about the mysterious man in white and he outed the team.
The White Sox and their manager Ozzie Guillen are followed by controversy like a puppy follows it’s nose to food.
There is no one in the game more colourful than Guillen, and he makes waves wherever he goes. It’s not surprising that there is a trickle down effect to his players, particularly in the midst of two extremely disappointing seasons.
In short, it’s called the dog days of summer. It’s after the trade deadline and nothing else is going on except the game on the field, so certain members of the media feel the need to stir up a bee’s nest.
Particularly media outlets with major broadcast deals with the league.
Especially if a team residing in the division with their two golden geese — the Yankees and Boston Red Sox — and it can be done without hurting them . . .
Now I’m on to my own conspiracy.
jaldrich@www.reddeeradvocate.com
Twitter.com/Ridingthepine03