When details about the Houston Astros’ cheating tactics went public in November, it was natural to speculate about other teams potentially cheating. The Red Sox, for example, are under investigation for their own replay-room violations.
But you probably don’t have to worry about the Oakland Athletics — at least not to the extent of the Astros.
The Athletic recently published an article that asked big-league general managers if they would know if the players were cheating. Now-fired Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow insisted that he wasn’t aware of the scheme, and in the article, Brewers pitcher (formerly with the A’s) Brett Anderson came in with an epic explanation of the Athletics’ limitations in Oakland.
Basically, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum is too terrible — with a replay room comically far away from the clubhouse — for the A’s to cheat if they wanted to.
He said via The Athletic:
“I know the A’s weren’t cheating. Because, one, I don’t know if they could afford it. And to relay from (expletive) 300 yards away in the video room? What were we going to do, get some vendor to throw some popcorn up in the air, or something? It’s too (expletive) far to relay something.”
Anderson joked the only way for Oakland to communicate would be through the ballpark’s decaying infrastructure. “The lights go out, it’s a curveball,” Anderson said. “If there’s a sewage backup, it’s a fastball.”
Amazing. Having the worst stadium in baseball (as ranked by us at For The Win) comes in handy sometimes.
I don’t think a team could have a better defense than that right there.
