Was it a Blaze or was it a Surge?
Remember the story from a few weeks ago that the Boston Red Sox used an Apple Watch to steal pitching signals from the Yankees? Well, it sounds like it was actually a Fitbit and not an Apple’s smartwatch at the centre of the cheating scandal.
That’s according to Nick Carfardo, baseball writer at the Boston Globe, who tweeted that a Major League source has revealed there was no Apple Watch involved in the Red Sox sign stealing. It was actually a Fitbit device.
Read this: Wearables and ‘cheating’ in sport – The state of play
There’s no mention of which Fitbit was used, but with the Ionic smartwatch not available yet, it could only be either the Fitbit Blaze or the Fitbit Surge, both of which offer smart notification support.
If you need a reminder, Red Sox video personnel looked for pitch signals and then relayed the information to trainers in the dugout. A formal complaint was made by Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, who included video evidence that forced the Red Sox to admit their injustice. In retaliation, the Red Sox filed their own formal complaint about the Yankees cheating, although with an older piece of tech: TV.
The role of wearables being used in major sports has been a hot topic over the past year as governing bodies try to determine whether devices should be used during game time. The MLB has been pretty welcoming to wearables approving the use of the Motus baseball sleeve and the Zephyr Bioharness heart and breathing monitor last year before giving the thumbs up to the Whoop Strap for in-game use in March this year.
While stealing signals isn’t totally outlawed in baseball, the role that wearable tech can play to speed up the sneaky process is likely to open the debate around whether Fitbits, Apple Watches and other devices should be removed from the dugout entirely.
