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Auerbach and Others : On Cheating In Sports
> [The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com]
> [Boston Globe Online / Sports]
>
>
>
> Old-timers, ex-players recall the thrill
> of the cheat
>
> By Will McDonough, Globe Columnist,
> 09/18/99 <Snips>
>
> Cheating in sports didn't begin
> with the Cleveland Indians this
> week, and won't end there, either. As long
> as games are played, someone will try to
> get the edge.
>
> ''There are two kinds of cheating,'' says
> the old master, Red Auerbach. ''Illegal
> and immoral. Illegal is something like
> Cleveland did, if they were really doing
> it. Immoral is like letting the grass grow
> high, or watering the field too much so
> that it became muddy, raising or lowering
> the mound to suit your own purposes, which
> is what they used to do in the old days.
>
> ''Immoral is not breaking the rules, but
> still doing something that isn't right. A
> few years back I drew up a list of 28 ways
> to get an edge in various sports. I don't
> know what I did with it. I wish I still
> had it.''
>
> The Indians, according to the Red Sox,
> were using a camera in the center-field
> bleachers to spy on Boston catcher Jason
> Varitek giving the pitch signals. The
> Cleveland coaches, watching a monitor,
> would break down the Boston code and when
> they saw a fastball coming, would whistle
> from the dugout, alerting the hitter.
> Cleveland denied the charges.
>
> ''Back when I was playing, a good guy
> named Al Worthington was pitching for the
> White Sox,'' says Dick Radatz, the
> greatest Red Sox reliever ever. ''At the
> end of the year, he quit the team and blew
> the whistle on them. He said the White Sox
> had a guy hidden in the scoreboard in
> center field and this guy had a pair of
> binoculars. When he saw what the catcher
> called, if it was a fastball, he would
> flash a light to the White Sox hitters.
>
> ''I played with Worthington in the minors.
> He was a religious guy and I guess this
> stuff really bothered him. We had some
> guys that I played with like Bob Turley
> and Slick Gardner who were really good at
> picking up the other team's signs. But
> stealing signs is all part of a game
> within the game.
>
> ''I remember one night I was pitching in
> Baltimore. The lights in Baltimore were
> bad and I had a tough time picking up Bob
> Tillman's signs. So I told him I would let
> him know what I was going to throw by what
> I did with the rosin bag. If I threw it
> behind me on the mound, it was a fastball.
> To the side, was a slider. I only had two
> pitches. The first pitch I throw a
> fastball. Second time I throw the rosin
> bag to the side and throw a slider. I got
> the guy down 2 and 0 and decide I'm going
> to come back with another slider. As soon
> as I throw the rosin bag to the side,
> Brooks Robinson yells out of the dugout
> ''slider,'' and started laughing. I asked
> him later how he did it, and he said,
> because I never threw the rosin bag to the
> side, I had always thrown it behind me.''
>
> Jim Lonborg, who pitched in the National
> League as well after his days with Boston
> and Milwaukee, talks about the different
> ways pitchers can cheat.
>
> ''There was a lot of talk when I was with
> the Phillies that the Cubs had a guy in
> the scoreboard in center stealing the
> signs,'' he said. ''That can be dangerous.
> If I was pitching and I thought the other
> team was stealing our pitches, we'd change
> the signal, so when the hitter was looking
> for a curveball, I'd throw him a fastball
> up and in under his chin and knock him
> down. That would end all of that stuff.
>
> ''If a batter is looking for a curveball
> and is hanging out over the plate and gets
> a fastball, he's in trouble. Bobby Wine
> was with the Phillies and whenever we
> played against Don Sutton, he would
> collect baseballs. All of them had the
> same scuff mark on them. Sutton would cut
> the ball and this would make it easier to
> throw a bigger breaking ball. John Wyatt
> had the vaseline ball going when I played
> with the Sox. He rubbed it on the back of
> his neck and put some inside his belt so
> the umpires couldn't find it. Gaylord
> Perry was the best. He had illegal
> substances all over his body, anywhere his
> pitching hand could touch.''
>
> The hitters can also try to cheat on the
> pitchers. ''When Dick Stuart played with
> us,'' laughs Carl Yastrzemski, ''he used
> to hammer little tacks into the barrel of
> the bat to tighten it up. We used to laugh
> in the dugout. If it was a day game, and
> the sun was out, you could see the
> reflection off the bat from the nails. He
> got caught. Batters are always looking for
> an edge.
>
> ''When I was playing I tried putting cork
> in the barrel of the bat. You drill out
> the head of the bat, and put some cork in
> there. I tried it in practice and it
> didn't do anything for me. What I did do
> that helped was scrape the grooves on the
> bat and put rosin in the grooves.
>
> This kept the bat from splintering. One
> time Dwight Evans said he heard that
> putting varnish that they used to paint
> boats would harden the wood in the bat. So
> we got a bucket of the stuff, and put some
> of our bats in there for a couple of days.
> The varnish did harden the bats. The only
> problems was they weighed about 5 pounds
> each and we couldn't pick them up to swing
> them.''
>
> Harry Sinden says getting the edge in
> hockey doesn't always mean sharpening the
> skates.
>
> ''The league caught Pittsburgh cheating a
> couple of years ago when Mario Lemieux was
> playing,'' says the Bruins president.
> ''Mario was terrific playing from behind
> the net and setting his teammates up in
> front to score. The league rule states
> that the distance from the boards behind
> the net to the net is 10 feet. Pittsburgh
> had it 11 feet at both ends and got
> caught.
>
> ''Goaltenders are the guys most apt to
> cheat. Years ago their pads could be 10
> inches across. But when you measured them
> they were bigger and the goalies claimed
> the leather pads expanded because of
> sweat. So we made them 12 and then 14
> inches across. We have them back to 12
> inches.
>
> ''Some teams have soft ice. Chicago and
> Toronto are two teams that were suspected
> of doctoring the ice to slow down play
> over the years. And some guys on these
> teams that were playing the
> clutch-and-grab kind of hockey, would cut
> out the palms of their hockey gloves, so
> they could reach their fingers through and
> hold onto you better. Then when
> walkie-talkies first came to hockey, where
> a coach on the bench would talk to another
> in the press box, teams were stealing the
> frequencies and listening in on what the
> other team was saying. I had a funny one
> in a game against Pittsburgh when I was
> coaching. Both coaches exchange the
> starting lineups and give them to the
> referee. You indicated the starters by
> circling their numbers on the score sheet.
> One night I noticed the Pittsburgh coach
> didn't circle their goalie. I knew who
> they were going to start, so I circled the
> backup goalie. After the play started, the
> first stoppage I called the ref over and
> point out they started the ''wrong''
> goalie, and he gave them a penalty.
> Needless to say, Pittsburgh was mad as
> hell.''
>
> Auerbach says illegal/immoral activity in
> basketball, goes further back than the
> start of the NBA in 1946. ''In the 1930s,
> pro basktball was played in thirds. There
> were three 15-minute periods instead of
> two halves. So the home team would doctor
> the baskets at the end of the floor they
> were going to be shooting at twice. You
> could loosen the rims or tighten the rims,
> according to what kind of team you had and
> what suited your style best.
>
> When we had the fast break going and
> scoring a lot of points with our Celtic
> teams, we also checked the nets when we
> went into another building. Some teams
> would try to tighten the nets to slow down
> our fast break. Tight nets make it more
> difficult to pull the ball out and get it
> up the court fast.''
>
> Auerbach feels that ''cheating'' was part
> of the Celtics' mystique, even though they
> didn't do it. ''Some coaches came in to
> play us with excuses already in place for
> losing. They're the ones that started all
> the b.s. about dead spots in the Garden
> floor. That we overheated the visiting
> locker rooms. That we gave them cold-water
> showers. If they said it, I let them
> believe it. I'd answer in a way that they
> thought we were doing it. One night when I
> was asked about it, I answered: ''They're
> so stupid over the years that they didn't
> figure out that our half of the court was
> air conditioned. Of course there was no
> air conditioning in the old Garden.''
>
> Auerbach gets an original double-double.
> He is the only one in Basketball Hall of
> Fame history to present two new inductees
> into the Hall. This year it will be Kevin
> McHale and John Thompson. The only time it
> was done before was when Red presented
> John Havlicek and Sam Jones the same year
>
> This story ran on page G03 of the Boston
> Globe on 09/18/99.
> © Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
>
>