
Cheated
The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing
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Narrated by:
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Andy Martino
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By:
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Andy Martino
About this listen
“A baseball book that reads like a spy novel - a story about cheaters and the cheated that has the power to forever change how we feel about the game.” (Brian Williams, MSNBC anchor and host of The 11th Hour)
The definitive insider story of one of the biggest cheating scandals to ever rock Major League Baseball, bringing down high-profile coaches and players, and exposing a long-rumored "sign-stealing" dark side of baseball
The ensuing scandal rivaled that of the 1919 "Black Sox" and the more recent steroid era, and became one of the most significant that the game had ever seen. The fallout ensnared many other teams, either as victims, alleged cheaters or both. The Los Angeles Dodgers felt robbed of a World Series title, and fended off accusations about their organization. Same for the New York Yankees. The Boston Red Sox were soon under investigation themselves. The New York Mets lost a promising manager before he ever managed a game.
Andy Martino, an award-winning journalist who has covered Major League Baseball for more than a decade, has broken numerous stories about the Astros and sign-stealing in baseball. In Cheated, Martino takes readers behind the scenes and into the heart of the events that shocked the baseball world. With inside access to the people directly involved, Martino breaks down not only exactly what happened and when, but reveals the fascinating explanations of why it all came about. The nuance and detail of the scandal reads like a true sports whodunnit. How did otherwise good people like Astros' manager A.J. Hinch, bench coach Alex Cora and veteran leader Carlos Beltran find themselves on the wrong side of clear ethical lines? And did they even know when those lines had been crossed? Cheated is an explosive, electrifying read.
©2021 Andy Martino (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
Finalist for the 2021 Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year
“Leave it to an old-school journalist like Andy Martino to get to the bottom of a modern-day baseball crime. With his intimate knowledge of clubhouse culture and ability to humanize the sport’s most recognizable figures, Martino explains how an accepted form of gamesmanship gradually transformed into blatant cheating. This story couldn’t be told in 280-character blocks on Twitter and we are fortunate Martino took the time to detail the confluence of factors that resulted a scandal that damaged baseball’s credibility.” (Dylan Hernandez, Los Angeles Times sports columnist)
"Andy Martino offers the definitive account of the sign-stealing scandal that brought low the 2017 World Series winners, undermining that victory and tarnishing the reputations of players and management alike.... In forensic detail, Martino describes the execution of the Astros’ scheme and assesses the advantage it conveyed. More compelling, though, are his attempts to understand its perpetrators, especially Carlos Beltran, one of the ringleaders.... Beltran’s descent down the slippery slope from all-but-sanctioned espionage to reprehensible cheating gives Martino’s narrative its compelling tragic arc.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“Andy Martino delves, dissects, and masterfully delivers the high drama of the sign-stealing scandal that has rocked the baseball world since 2017. Crisply told and densely packed with historical and psychological insights, this is one of the best books about American sports I have read in years.” (Paul Auster, author of The New York Trilogy and 4 3 2 1)
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Phil Jackson accuses Red Auerbach of cheap tactics
- By Sean on 01-03-24
By: Rich Cohen
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The Yankee Way
- The Untold Inside Story of the Brian Cashman Era
- By: Andy Martino
- Narrated by: Andy Martino
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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With rare access to the inner sanctum of the New York Yankees, SNY analyst Andy Martino weaves two years of exclusive interviews with general manager Brian Cashman into a revelatory account of never-before-told stories about Derek Jeter, Aaron Judge, Alex Rodriguez, the complex front office, team ownership, and insights into the World Series wins and day-to-day running of the team that fans never get to see.
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An insightful look inside ….
- By brooklynboy48 on 04-11-25
By: Andy Martino
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The Back Roads to March
- The Unsung, Unheralded, and Unknown Heroes of a College Basketball Season
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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John Feinstein has already taken listeners into the inner circles of top college basketball programs in The Legends Club. This time, Feinstein pulls back the curtain on college basketball's lesser-known Cinderella stories - the smaller programs who no one expects to win, who have no chance of attracting the most coveted high school recruits, who rarely send their players on to the NBA. Feinstein follows a handful of players, coaches, and schools who dream, not of winning the NCAA tournament but of making it past their first or second round games.
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A love letter to college basketball
- By Hebern on 01-27-22
By: John Feinstein
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Winning Fixes Everything
- How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess
- By: Evan Drellich
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Baseball has been defaced and consumed by corporate America. As Moneyball-thinking and Ivy League graduates grabbed hold of the sport, the Astros set out to build a cost-efficient winning machine on the principles of the outside business world, squeezing every dollar out of every transaction, player and employee. In less than a decade, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow helped revolutionize the game and create an environment that led to one of the worst cheating scandals in baseball history, a Shakespearean tragedy of innovation and failed change management.
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The Houston Trashstros
- By DavidF on 02-20-23
By: Evan Drellich
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First Man
- The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
- By: James R. Hansen
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the Moon became a legend. In First Man, author James R. Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over 50 hours of interviews with the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive access to private documents and family sources, this "magnificent panorama of the second half of the American twentieth century" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) is an unparalleled biography of an American icon.
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Not really 'unabridged'
- By A Reader on 06-06-18
By: James R. Hansen
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Play Hungry
- The Making of a Baseball Player
- By: Pete Rose
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Pete Rose was a legend on the field. As baseball’s hit king, he shattered records that were thought to be unbreakable. And during the 1970s, he was the leader of the Big Red Machine, the Cincinnati Reds team that dominated the game. But he’s also the greatest player who may never enter the Hall of Fame because of his lifetime ban from the sport. Perhaps no other ballplayer’s story is so representative of the triumphs and tragedies of our national pastime.
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Great Book
- By Joel on 12-11-21
By: Pete Rose
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Swell
- A Sailing Surfer's Voyage of Awakening
- By: Liz Clark
- Narrated by: Liz Clark
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Captain Liz Clark spent her youth dreaming of traveling the world by sailboat and surfing remote waves. When she was 22, she met a mentor who helped turn her desire into reality. Embarking on an adventure that most only fantasize about, she set sail from Santa Barbara, California, as captain of her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, headed south in search of surf, self, and the wonder and learning that lies beyond the unbroken horizon.
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such a disapointment
- By Mikel marchant on 01-21-20
By: Liz Clark
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Tall Men, Short Shorts
- The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter
- By: Leigh Montville
- Narrated by: Leigh Montville
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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They don’t set up any better than this. The greatest basketball player of all time–Bill Russell–and his juggernaut Boston Celtics, winners of ten (ten!) of the previous twelve NBA championships, squeak through one more playoff run and land in the Finals again. Russell’s opponent? The fearsome 7’1” next-generation superstar, Wilt Chamberlain, recently traded to the LA Lakers to form the league’s first dream team. Bill Russell and John Havlicek versus Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor.
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Very good book with a caveat
- By Hebern on 12-06-21
By: Leigh Montville
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Mind and Matter
- A Life in Math and Football
- By: John Urschel, Louisa Thomas
- Narrated by: Sullivan Jones
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Against the odds, John Urschel found a way to manage his double life as a scholar and an athlete. While he was an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens, he simultaneously pursued his PhD in mathematics at MIT. This is his story.
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Fantastic!
- By Steve Promisel on 10-12-19
By: John Urschel, and others
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Paradise Found
- A High School Football Team's Rise from the Ashes
- By: Bill Plaschke
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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From LA Times columnist and ESPN Around the Horn panelist Bill Plaschke, a story of tragedy, triumph, and the remarkable power of high school football in one small California town.
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amazing strength
- By Patricia M. Copeland on 10-20-23
By: Bill Plaschke
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The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
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Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
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Spearhead
- An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II
- By: Adam Makos
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of the international best seller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel - and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.
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Excellent
- By Msgr. John R. McGrath on 03-11-19
By: Adam Makos
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Unvarnished
- A Gimlet-Eyed Look at Life Behind the Bar
- By: Eric Alperin, Deborah Stoll
- Narrated by: Eric Alperin
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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When it opened a decade ago, the acclaimed Los Angeles speakeasy The Varnish - owned, designed, and managed by award-winning cocktail aficionado Eric Alperin - quickly became the stylish standard bearer for modern bars. Unvarnished is a candid, voice-driven, no-holds-barred look at the workings of a bar, and the foundation of The Varnish’s success: attention to hospitality and an abiding belief in the nobility of service.
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One of the most accurate accounts of being behind a bar
- By Brian T on 07-14-23
By: Eric Alperin, and others
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The Escape Artist
- The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World
- By: Jonathan Freedland
- Narrated by: Jonathan Freedland
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba became one of the very first Jews to escape from Auschwitz and make his way to freedom—among only a tiny handful who ever pulled off that near-impossible feat. He did it to reveal the truth of the death camp to the world—and to warn the last Jews of Europe what fate awaited them. Against all odds, Vrba and his fellow escapee, Fred Wetzler, climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and narrowly missed German bullets until they had smuggled out the first full account of Auschwitz the world had ever seen.
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Good
- By Matt on 11-10-22
Big Deal
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It fills-in a lot of blanks.
The Astros need to be stripped of their 2017 WS Champion….PERIOD!!
Take away the 2017 WS Trophy!!
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Excellent portrayal
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Balanced Look at Baseball’s Nightmare
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Recent events in BB that have been hidden from MLB who are trying to make the mess go away.
The narrator had difficulty reading a continuous sentence without breaking it up.
Don’t let that stop you from making the purchase
I’m just relaying what I learned in a semester of public speaking course with a demanding instructor.
Details of the scandal
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Great insight
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Cheaters
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Review
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I'm not an Astros fan, but do find it hilarious that people were so outraged at this "scandal". The game has adjusted to combat this now, just like it has always been reactive to any "cheating" that has occurred in the history of the game. Who's next on the list, only time will tell.
Pretty good back story to the "scandal"
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Great Book - Great History
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