The most common way to relay stolen signs from second base is for the baserunner to do something subtle to denote the pitch he thinks is coming. It begins with cracking the opposing catcher's code: a process that, in the modern game, now takes place in the video room, with the careful examination of a live game feed by a helpful team employee. Once the code is cracked, the task falls on the baserunner who makes his way to second.

It's a mystery. But we do know that earlier this month, he broke the MLB rule of having a device capable of telecommunications in the dugout. We also know that the Yankees allegedly have video of Jochim looking at his Apple Watch and communicating with players on the bench, who then communicated with players in the game. We also know that the Red Sox then counter-accused the Yankees of stealing signs via YES Network television cameras.

What was it for Jochim? Was it his Spanish language skills (listed on his Linkedin) or a knack for intuitive deep tissue work? Was it an encyclopedic repertoire of movie quotes, or a willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty?

Or maybe he's one of those guys who find themselves easily peer pressured into acting out of character because of an understandable desire to endear himself to his colleagues. There's often a trait or skill that increases the value of men who round out baseball staffs. It's best a first base coach, for instance, brings some other skills to the table—he should throw great batting practice, be a faithful golf partner, or be really funny.

The Boston Red Sox seem to have gone a less common route . We don't know much about Jon Jochim, who was promoted last year to his post as assistant trainer with the Red Sox. We don't know how he earned his promotion. Maybe it's the boring answer. Maybe he's just a great trainer with an unfortunate taste for smart watches.

If you're a guy who likes to hold your batting gloves, when you take your lead you might slightly wiggle one or the other to denote a fastball is coming. A more obvious, minor-league-grade signal is to cover the logo on your helmet.

Baseball sign stealing programs run compartmentalized, like intelligence agencies, wherein each agent may not necessarily know what the agent in the next office is working on. So too with baseball players. It's likely that most Red Sox players didn't know what was going on. When your teammate leaves the dugout during the seventh inning stretch, you may or may not know what he's doing. A winning team is a collection of harmonious cliques of various sizes, and a losing team is a collection of cliques who are variously suspicious that the behaviors of the other cliques may be detrimental to the team.

The wipe-system, where a battery is sharp enough to have the pitcher swipe at his uniform with his glove once or twice just before starting his windup in order to modulate the sign up or down just before each pitch, is the best analog defense against sign stealing. That it is largely used in the windup, proves that teams have been wary of sign stealing coming from somewhere other than second base for years. The use of this system alone usually shuts down sign stealing attempts, though not all batteries are willing or able to do it.

Just as a person might leave their front door unlocked to run a quick errand, a major league catcher may be inclined to simplify the sequences of signs he will ultimately flash to his pitcher. The more complicated the signs are, the easier they are to screw up, so the catcher has to find a balance. Most often, this sacrifice is made in order to avoid the worst case scenario, wherein the catcher calls for a curveball that will be thrown at about 70 miles per hour, but the pitcher mistakes the sign for a fastball, and throws a 94 MPH fastball with unpredictable movement that will be virtually impossible to catch and may even hurt him or get past him.

As a fan, when you see a player exit the dugout during a broadcast, half the time he's heading to the video room to see whether a pitch was a strike or not, but there are myriad possibilities—is he taking a shot of whiskey? Texting his wife? Grabbing an HGH gummi bear ? Cramming Corinthians 9:24? Vaping? Vaping? Many athletes are great actors, but others are like those people who, when you tell them don't look now at the person nearby you want them to notice something about, will immediately look at them. These men must be cut out of the cheating.

Throughout baseball history, teams have been accused of stealing signs with binoculars or telephoto lenses and finding simple ways to relay the signs to the hitters. Bobby Thomson's famous Shot Heard Round the World to win the 1951 National League Pennant for the New York Giants came on the back of an elaborate sign stealing system that involved a telescope and buzzer wire at the Polo Grounds. Cleveland used their scoreboard. Accusations have been consistently leveled at Toronto, whose centerfield suites are basically wearing two-way spy glasses.

Sign stealing is a part of the game. It is expected. And when live video became standard for every big league ballgame, it was inevitable that teams would use it to steal signs. Teams have been using game broadcast feeds to cheat ever since the first time a video technician or a player had an epiphany when looking at the camera feed of the game, canvassed the signal tendencies of the opposing catcher, and transferred this information to the dugout. This is relatively low tech cheating—and there's a high barrier to entry. You have to crack the code, get to second base, and relay the signs.

Considering the generally unsurprised reactions I've collected on the matter from players, scouts and staff, this Red Sox controversy reminds me a bit of Mark McGwire "getting caught" with Androstenedione at the height of a steroid era in which better performance enhancing drugs were available (in fact, many people in the game believe McGwire planted the Andro in his locker knowing that writers would go for that pump fake while he drained bottles of better steroids). Here we are, as always, focusing on less sophisticated ways to cheat while more sophisticated methods can be easily implemented.

Without knowing exactly what was said, or sent via SMS in the Red Sox dugout, the central questions is whether the Apple Watch was used to simply save someone the physical trip from the video room to the dugout and more swiftly inform players what code the Yankees were using—or whether the Red Sox had something else up their sleeves.

Stealing Signs in the Smartwatch Era