Sports Illustrated

"All's fair in love, war and baseball," wrote Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Mathewson in 1912, "except stealing signals dishonestly." Not a very demanding moral code, but it's been passé in American sports for years. "Win any way you can," said New York Giants manager Leo Durocher, "as long as you can get away with it." So it's no surprise that Joshua Prager, a Wall Street Journal writer, discovered Durocher had an elaborate sign-stealing system for his 1951 National League champs. A Giants coach would hide behind the Polo Grounds scoreboard with a telescope, peer at the opposing catcher's fingers and press a button—once for a fastball, twice for a breaking pitch—linked to a buzzer in the bullpen, and a sign was then relayed to the Giants hitter. This meant that one of the greatest moments in sports—Bobby Thomson's playoff homer to beat the Dodgers—was, to some degree, tainted. A revelation of that magnitude demands close examination, and Prager provides it. After taking note of everything from the number of light bulbs at the Polo Grounds (836) to the color of the tiles in Durocher's bathroom (beige), Prager turns his remarkable powers of investigation on the men involved in the scheme. The result is an absorbing critique of the competitive ethic that too often rules not only America's playing fields but its boardrooms as well.