Red Sox Cheated With Fitbit, Not Apple Watch, Source Claims
Remember the Major League Baseball drama going on between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees? The two teams have accused the other of cheating, with the Red Sox in particular being accused of using a wearable to alert players to the Yankees' hand signals. An investigation into the matter was confirmed at the time, but official details were kept to a minimum. Filling the void were sources who surfaced claiming the Red Sox were using the Apple Watch to cheat, but now that has changed.
The Boston Globe's baseball writer Nick Cafardo took to Twitter over the weekend to reveal that an MLB source has said the Red Sox's alleged cheating involved a Fitbit 'product,' not an Apple Watch. The specific Fitbit model wasn't named, but again, there hasn't been any official confirmation about this.
Turns out there was no Apple Watch involved in Red Sox sign stealing. It was a Fitbit product according to a major league source. .
— Nick Cafardo (@nickcafardo) September 16, 2017
It's an interesting tidbit of info given Commissioner Rob Manfred's conclusion over the weekend that the Red Sox did engage in cheating. The team was fined, though the amount wasn't revealed to the public; that money is going to the hurricane relief efforts taking place down south. The investigation found that some kind of electronic devices were used to share opposing teams' hand signals, but whether it was an Apple Watch remains nebulous.
A formal complaint filed by the Yankees resulted in the Red Sox stopping their use of the device, according to the investigation summary. However, the Red Sox had responded tit-for-tat and filed their own complaint against the Yankees, claiming that the latter team was also engaging in cheating. This allegation was dismissed over the weekend, as the investigation didn't turn up any sufficient evidence to prove these claims.
The exact device used in the process of cheating remains a mystery. Why the Apple Watch was initially pegged as the wearable in question is also unclear, though it could be due to someone's generic use of an Apple product as seems to be common in sports.