ESPN Accuses Blue Jays of Stealing Signs

It's probably just sour grapes over the best player in baseball deciding to play in Canada. At least ESPN spelled 'Centre' correctly.

The online sports world is in a tizzy this afternoon over an ESPN article that just falls short of all-out accusing the Toronto Blue Jays of stealing pitching signs from opposing teams at the SkyDome (not Rogers Centre), which is about as verboten in the MLB as introducing a salary cap to give smaller market teams a chance of making the playoffs. ESPN writers Peter Keating and Amy C. Nelson dig up a bunch of anecdotes from players who say they witnessed a "man in white” in the outfield stands at the SkyDome relaying catcher signals to Blue Jays batters in the past season. The authors, in turn, try to support this with data from last season (in which the Jose Bautista-led Jays obliterated the rest of the league in home runs), but other bloggers, notably the guys at The Score, have all but dismantled the entire article. Given the Jay's woeful regular season records in recent years, Twitter user Steve Lepore (@slepore) jokes: “Oh, so the Blue Jays were caught stealing signs? What a shame that all their playoff appearances over the last decade are now a sham.”