MLB: Don’t hold your breath for the ’17 or ’18 World Series being vacated

The 1911-1914 Philadelphia Athletics—They won three American League pennants and two World Series in that span. Owner/manager Connie Mack was known for being a master psychological warrior. Suspected but never proven: their hunchbacked bat boy, Louis Van Zelst. He sat with those A’s on the bench and was suspected of catching onto pitch signs as he walked out to retrieve discarded bats, then sending stolen signs from the bench, off the field.

Never proven, but much suspected in its time. Likewise, stories that A’s reserve Danny Murphy perched atop a Philadelphia rooftop armed with bincoulars and relaying stolen signs to A’s hitters by moving a weather vane north for curve balls and south for fastballs. (To my knowledge, nobody’s suggested what would have moved east or west.)

The 1940 Detroit Tigers—In his memoir published posthumously, Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg admitted the ’40 Tigers had spies in the stands behind the outfield fences. They used the scope of pitcher Tommy Bridges‘s hunting rifle to steal opposing signs starting that September. The Tigers won the pennant but lost the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.

Greenberg’s admission didn’t exactly lead to demands that the pennant be handed in retrospect to the Cleveland Indians—who finished a game out of first.