Baseball Cheating Scandal: The Rise and Sudden Fall of the Houston Astros

The Houston Astros took four years to mutate from baseball’s worst team to its best. But even at their lowest point, as they stumbled to a franchise-record 111 losses in 2013, they constantly emphasized their brand of ambition.

Everywhere they went that season, the Astros took an upright, game show-style spinning wheel for their clubhouse. Words like “leadership,” “trust” and “desire” filled the slots. So did an image of the World Series trophy.

It was a gimmick to encourage the players: Keep pushing the wheel in hopes of a breakthrough. The club soared to the pinnacle of the sport, propelled by an unapologetic desire to change the game, and won the franchise’s first World Series in 2017.

But on Monday, a scathing report by Major League Baseball exposed the Astros as cheaters, trashing their reputation, ousting their leaders and igniting the sport’s biggest scandal since the steroid revelations of the 2000s.

The shock waves have been seismic. Three managers and one general manager have lost their jobs: A.J. Hinch and Jeff Luhnow of the Astros, Alex Cora of the Boston Red Sox and Carlos Beltran of the Mets — all implicated in a brazen scheme to illegally use electronics to steal opposing catchers’ signs and tip off their own batters to what pitch was coming.

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