Sign-stealing documentary not much new
In the nearly four years since the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing operation was revealed, there’s no lack of content to consume on the subject.
Three books, a podcast series, countless articles and, for the conspiracy-minded, plenty of Zapruder film-like breakdowns on social media can be found about Houston’s first World Series championship season.
The first documentary on the subject premieres at 9 p.m. CDT on Tuesday with a 90-minute episode of PBS’ Frontline series titled “The Astros Edge: Triumph and Scandal in Major League Baseball.” The film also will be streamed on PBS’ website and app beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday and on Frontline’s YouTube channel simultaneously with the TV debut.
The film, a rare foray into sports for Frontline, is directed by Jonathan Clasberry with Ben Reiter serving as narrator with a producer credit.
Reiter is taking his fourth bite at the Astros apple. As a Sports Illustrated staffer, he was embedded with the team and wrote the famous 2014 cover story predicting the 2017 championship. He expanded on that with the 2018 book “Astroball,” which now seems like a hagiography. Reiter then came back in 2020 with the podcast series “The Edge” about the sign-stealing scandal, saying he “felt a great responsibility to go back into the story and figure out what I’d missed.”
In the film, Reiter says the revelation of the sign-stealing scandal by The Athletic’s Evan Drellich — a former Chronicle Astros beat writer — and Ken Rosenthal in November 2019 “shocked me and it upended much of the mythology around the Astros which I had helped create.”
Reiter’s narration is not just voiceover work. He’s omnipresent in the film, chewing scenery from outside Minute Maid Park to Madrid, where he interviewed ex-Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, now running seconddivision Spanish soccer club Leganes.
But for people familiar with the Astros scandal and the principal participants, the film reveals little new. There are no fresh interviews with any 2017 Astros players, manager A.J. Hinch, owner Jim Crane or MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who gave Astros players immunity in exchange for cooperating with the league’s investigation.
Here are some takeaways from the documentary:
• The most interesting interviewee is someone who hasn’t spoken on the record before: Antonio Padilla, a former manager in the Astros’ video department from 2016-22. He provides a behind-the-scenes perspective heretofore unheard. Padilla described the Astros’ preoccupation with sign-stealing and what opponents may have been doing as “this paranoia where we had to do everything to protect ourselves and try to gain an advantage to try to compete.”
Padilla said two months into the 2017 season, bench coach Alex Cora asked him to put a TV monitor down below the home dugout at Minute Maid Park. The monitor was later used to decipher signs from the opposing catcher and relay them to Astros hitters at the plate. Padilla said “it seemed like Carlos Beltrán’s idea” to implement the signstealing system and some other players said “This isn’t right, we shouldn’t do this.”
“Instantly, I knew it wasn’t right,” Padilla said. “But what was I going to do? I was like the lowest guy on the totem pole there. If the coaches knew and the other players knew, I was just rolling with it.
“It was definitely something that’s on your conscience and you’re thinking that, OK, maybe this has (been) a part of our success, so you start to feel more guilty about that and then obviously, it’s in the back of your mind over the years before it gets out to the public.”
But Padilla, despite his qualms, kept quiet and it paid off. The team voted to give him a full postseason share in 2017 worth $450,000 — 10 times his salary in 2017.
• Tony Adams, the Astros fan and web developer who cataloged the trash-can banging at Minute Maid Park in depth on his website, explains his methodology.
Adams said the Astros “panicked” after realizing White Sox reliever Danny Farquhar picked up on the trash-can banging during a Sept. 21 game. He said there was no more banging the rest of the regular season and he wasn’t able to hear any during postseason games.
MLB’s 2020 report said the Astros continued to use the video room and monitor outside the dugout to steal signs the rest of the regular season and during the playoffs after Manfred’s Sept. 15 memorandum reiterating league rules banning the use of electronic equipment to steal signs.
• Luhnow said “I take my responsibility” but continued to deny that he knew about the signstealing in 2017. He also pushed back against Manfred calling the Astros’ culture during his regime “very problematic,” saying there was no toxic culture within the organization, instead calling it “very productive.”
• Former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent has a colorful soundbite excoriating Manfred for giving Astros players immunity. “I’d have thrown them all out,” Vincent said. “I would have said they’re out for the rest of their lives.”
Vincent, ousted in 1992 by a hard-line group of owners, said Manfred clearing Crane of any culpability in his report showed the commissioner ultimately works for the owners.
“Your job is to make us money,” Vincent said an owner once told him. “We can run the baseball part. We understand baseball — we don’t need you. All we need you to do is think of ways to expand our revenue base and make money for us. If you’re not making money for us, you’re getting in the way.”
• The Astros aren’t singled out in the film, as sign-stealing by the Yankees and Red Sox in the wake of MLB implementing video replay is also addressed.
How does the Astros’ legacy come off ? It’s complicated. While Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci said Houston was “at the forefront of what’s considered standard procedure now” with its use of cutting-edge technology in player development, he also said the Astros “defined a dirty era of baseball.”