Source: Chicago Tribune / Getty
If you miss the Houston Astros batters getting hit with errant pitches during the preseason, another fastball is coming their way soon.
Three-time NBA champ LeBron James is producing a documentary on the sign-stealing scandal from 2015 and beyond. Quibi announced Friday that the docuseries tentatively titled “Sign Language” will debut on the streaming service and will be produced by James’ Uninterrupted sports media company.
The series will be directed by Julia Willoughby Nason and Jenner Furst, who directed the well-received (and mindblowing) “Fyre Fraud” documentary on Hulu in 2019. According to Variety, Maverick Carter, James’ childhood friend who was responsible for engineering The Decision and co-founded Uninterrupted will be an executive producer.
“The documentary will transcend the baseball diamond to explore larger themes of greed, cheating, corruption, sportsmanship and social media activism,” Quibi said in a press release. “Sign Language will be the definitive documentary about the scandal that rocked America’s pastime.”
During the 2017 World Series, the Texas team began stealing signs, noting what the opposing pitcher was throwing next and properly preparing the batter for it. Stealing signs isn’t technically against official MLB rules, but because the Astros went above and beyond by using a camera and monitor system to gain more information, they’ve been heavily penalized.
The Athletic published a groundbreaking report where Mike Fiers –who pitched for the Astros in 2017–admitted and explained how the team used a centerfield camera to pick up the other team’s signs. The team went as far as to develop a system that included banging a trash can in the dugout to let hitters know an “off-speed pitch” was coming.
https://twitter.com/KyleNYY/status/1217890203207184386
Jose Altuve even had a clip go viral where he signaled to his teammates not to rip his jersey off and told a reporter he wanted to stay clothed because he didn’t want to get reprimanded by his wife when in all actuality he was wearing a buzzer that informed him what kind of pitch to expect.
This is just the latest big pickup for the new streaming service Quibi. Since launching in April, the platform already has exclusive content like Lena Waithe’s show on sneaker culture, the Chance The Rapper hosted Punk’d reboot, and much more.
