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Cheated

The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing

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Cheated

Written by: Andy Martino
Narrated by: Andy Martino
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About this listen

“A baseball book that reads like a spy novel - a story about cheaters and the cheated that has the power to forever change how we feel about the game.” (Brian Williams, MSNBC anchor and host of The 11th Hour)

The definitive insider story of one of the biggest cheating scandals to ever rock Major League Baseball, bringing down high-profile coaches and players, and exposing a long-rumored "sign-stealing" dark side of baseball

The ensuing scandal rivaled that of the 1919 "Black Sox" and the more recent steroid era, and became one of the most significant that the game had ever seen. The fallout ensnared many other teams, either as victims, alleged cheaters or both. The Los Angeles Dodgers felt robbed of a World Series title, and fended off accusations about their organization. Same for the New York Yankees. The Boston Red Sox were soon under investigation themselves. The New York Mets lost a promising manager before he ever managed a game.

Andy Martino, an award-winning journalist who has covered Major League Baseball for more than a decade, has broken numerous stories about the Astros and sign-stealing in baseball. In Cheated, Martino takes readers behind the scenes and into the heart of the events that shocked the baseball world. With inside access to the people directly involved, Martino breaks down not only exactly what happened and when, but reveals the fascinating explanations of why it all came about. The nuance and detail of the scandal reads like a true sports whodunnit. How did otherwise good people like Astros' manager A.J. Hinch, bench coach Alex Cora and veteran leader Carlos Beltran find themselves on the wrong side of clear ethical lines? And did they even know when those lines had been crossed? Cheated is an explosive, electrifying read.

©2021 Andy Martino (P)2021 Random House Audio
Baseball & Softball New York Sports Journalism
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What the critics say

Finalist for the 2021 Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year

“Leave it to an old-school journalist like Andy Martino to get to the bottom of a modern-day baseball crime. With his intimate knowledge of clubhouse culture and ability to humanize the sport’s most recognizable figures, Martino explains how an accepted form of gamesmanship gradually transformed into blatant cheating. This story couldn’t be told in 280-character blocks on Twitter and we are fortunate Martino took the time to detail the confluence of factors that resulted a scandal that damaged baseball’s credibility.” (Dylan Hernandez, Los Angeles Times sports columnist)

"Andy Martino offers the definitive account of the sign-stealing scandal that brought low the 2017 World Series winners, undermining that victory and tarnishing the reputations of players and management alike.... In forensic detail, Martino describes the execution of the Astros’ scheme and assesses the advantage it conveyed. More compelling, though, are his attempts to understand its perpetrators, especially Carlos Beltran, one of the ringleaders.... Beltran’s descent down the slippery slope from all-but-sanctioned espionage to reprehensible cheating gives Martino’s narrative its compelling tragic arc.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“Andy Martino delves, dissects, and masterfully delivers the high drama of the sign-stealing scandal that has rocked the baseball world since 2017. Crisply told and densely packed with historical and psychological insights, this is one of the best books about American sports I have read in years.” (Paul Auster, author of The New York Trilogy and 4 3 2 1)

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There are Cheaters and Then there are Cheaters

I read this book after a run of "Ball Four" by Jim Bouten and "October 1964" by David Halberstam (both I highly recommend), so it was a step down from those stories, but still an interesting bit of legend and lore from the Baseball Diamond. Baseball cheating is an interesting topic, and the perspective of the writer always plays into the narrative.

Overall the story was interesting to me as a lifelong baseball fan and enlightening. on a topic I needed to know more about. Some interesting anecdotes about the early sign stealing in baseball, and a fairly comprehensive overview of the Yankees, Red Sox and finally the Astros systemic cheating.

Not sure all the data is in this story, but still well told and worth a listen if you are a Baseball Fan. If you are looking for an explanation of what happened, it is fairly good as well.

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