BEEN THERE

sort of intermediary signal corps. Donie and Sam would let me know what was going on and I would relay the signs to Cobb.

The most notable follower of the Murphy-Chiles school of creative sign-stealing was George Stallings, who in 1897 and 1898 had managed the Phillies, where he had become good friends with Murphy. Stallings was out of baseball for the 1900 season but was well aware of Murphy’s ingenious scheme.

In 1909 when he came back to baseball after a long absence as manager of the New York

Highlanders—the Yankees as a name was not yet official though already in common use—Stallings realized that the buzzer-box system had its limitations, so he reverted to a wireless solar- powered scheme. He rented an apartment opposite the Hilltop Grounds that provided a clear view of home plate. A spotter armed with a pair of field glasses sat in the apartment window to steal catchers’ signs and relay them to Highlander batters with flashes of sunlight bounced off a mirror. The system worked perfectly save for days when the sky was overcast, and on those Stallings moved the operation to a spot behind the outfield fence. From there his operatives manipulated the crossbar in the letter H of the word “Hat” in an advertising sign. A black crossbar signified a fastball, while a white bar meant a breaking ball.

Throughout the season speculation about the Highlanders was widespread, and on September 27, 1909, charges of sign- stealing were finally made public in Sporting Life. Washington manager Joe Cantillon had been the first to figure out the scheme, which he confirmed by sending his trainer, Jerry Ettinger, out to spy on the spy. Ettinger told

Sporting Life that the man who did the stealing was “an oldtime pitcher” later identified as Gene McCann, who would become a top Yankee scout. Cantillon told Detroit Tiger manager Hughie Jennings, who sent his own trainer out beyond the fence during the Yankees’ final home stand of the 1909 season and caught the spy in the act. He then closed down Stallings’ operation by sending his men to demolish the scoreboard—one account claimed that it was burned to the ground—and Detroit took three of four from the New Yorkers, the club’s only losses in their final seventeen home games.

AP While sign-stealing in baseball dates back to the time of Ty Cobb (sliding), as chronicled in new book by Paul Dickson (inset l.), the ways players and teams go about it certainly have evolved, as the Astros, managed by A.J. Hinch (below), have been accused of using cameras and banging trash cans to pull off their schemes.