Author: Tom Davenport

Publisher: Forbes

Publication Year: 2020

Summary: The following article describes how gaining a competitive edge has been a long-time goal for teams within the sporting industry. The most well-known and recent example of a team crossing the ethical line into the territory of cheating is the Houston Astros in 2017. While the ethical issue was violating privacy, and it was only the opposing team’s information that was being stolen, the team was really put on the map with their now-tainted World Series championship. They would know what pitch was coming through a camera in centerfield and relay that to someone who would hit a trashcan to indicate the pitch based on a code-cracking algorithm of what the opposing catcher signaled to the opposing pitcher. Without the advancement of technology within the game of baseball and the analytical involvement of teams, this would never have occurred in the manner it did.