PHILADELPHIA — As you tune in for Game 3 of the World Series in Philadelphia tonight, you may notice several fans making references to cheating or trash cans while at Citizens Bank Park.
If you haven't been following baseball until recently, you might wonder what it's all about.
The trash cans are in reference to a cheating scandal involving members of the Houston Astros in 2017 and 2018 -- an elaborate sign-stealing system designed to give their hitters and unfair advantage over opposing pitchers.
According to Major League Baseball writers Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich, who broke the story in an article for The Athletic in 2019, members of the Astros used a video camera in the center field stands to film the signals sent by the opposing team's catcher to its pitcher to determine the next pitch.
Players or staffers watching the live camera feed behind the dugout would then use various audio signals -- including banging on trash cans -- to signal to the batter what kind of pitch was on the way.
Pitcher Mike Fiers, who played for the Astros in 2017, described the system to Rosenthal and Drellich for their article.
After the story broke, MLB launched an investigation of the allegations. In January 2020, MLB confirmed that the Astros used the system to steal signs during the 2017 regular season and playoffs, when they won a World Series title.
Houston also stole signs during part of the 2018 season as well, MLB's investigation determined.
As a result of the investigation, Houston general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were suspended for the 2020 season for failing to prevent the violations. The Astros immediately fired both men on the day their suspensions were announced.
The fallout also affected former Astros bench coach Alex Cora, who left the organization to take a manager's job with the Boston Red Sox. The investigation revealed Cora was one of the masterminds behind the entire scheme. He parted ways with the Red Sox after it was announced he was also suspended for the 2020 season, though the team rehired him when his suspension ended.
The only Astros player to be specifically named in the investigation was Carlos Beltran, who had been hired to manage the New York Mets in 2019 but parted ways with the team after the results of the investigation were announced.
No players were punished by MLB because they received immunity from the league in exchange for their cooperation with the investigation.
The Astros organization was fined $5 million and forfeited their first- and second-round picks in the 2020 and 2021 MLB drafts.
The team was allowed to retain its 2017 World Series title -- a move that drew heavy criticism from fans and opposing players alike.
Still, the punishment handed down by MLB was the most severe sanctions the league has taken against a member organization since the 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal, when an investigation determined a handful of players on the team had deliberately thrown the World Series that year. All of the players implicated in that scandal, including, most famously, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, received lifetime bans from baseball.
After Hinch was fired, Houston hired venerable veteran Dusty Baker to manage the team. Baker led the Astros to an ALCS appearance in his first season in 2020, and to the World Series last year, when Houston lost to the Atlanta Braves in six games.
There are five current Astros players who were on the team in 2017: Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Yuli Gurriel, Lance McCullers Jr., and Justin Verlander.