The Edge: Houston Astros

The Edge follows best-selling Astroball author Ben Reiter as he investigates the cheating scandal that tarnished the Houston Astros’ World Series 2017 win. Through original interviews with key figures in the scandal, Reiter gets to the bottom of what happened, who’s to blame, and why the scandal enraged the sports world more than any other in recent memory. He also answers the biggest question of all: What drove the most forward-thinking organization in the history of sports not just to the edge … but over it? The Edge is an Audacy original presented in partnership with Ben Reiter and Prologue Projects.

Episodes

Ep 0: Introducing "The Edge: Houston Astros" …Coming October 7

September 11, 2020 • 3 mins

Season One of The Edge is a six-part documentary podcast, presented by Cadence13 and Prologue Projects, following best-selling Astroball author Ben Reiter as he investigates the cheating scandal that tarnished the Houston Astros’ World Series 2017 win. Through original interviews with key figures in the scandal, Reiter gets to the bottom of what happened, who’s to blame, and why the scandal enraged the sports world more than any o...

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Ep 1: Bang Bang

October 7, 2020 • 49 mins

The Houston Astros were the worst baseball team in half a century. But when Ben Reiter wrote about the club for Sports Illustrated in 2014, he came to believe that they would soon be champions. In fact, he predicted on the cover of the magazine that they would win the 2017 World Series. Then they actually did, and Reiter wrote a bestselling book about their novel strategies and earned a new nickname: Astrodamus. But there was one t...

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Ep 2: Stargazers

October 7, 2020 • 52 mins

Houston’s first great sports innovator was named Judge Roy Hofheinz. He brought the Astros to town in the 1960s with the promise of what would become known as the Eighth Wonder of the World: the Astrodome, the first ever domed stadium. But there was one thing the Judge couldn’t build: a championship team. That task fell to Hofheinz’s modern successor, Jeff Luhnow, who applied the disruptive, data-driven techniques he’d learned in t...

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Ep 3: Smart Guys

October 14, 2020 • 45 mins

One of baseball’s unofficial slogans? “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.” Baseball's history of sign stealing is almost as old as the sport itself. Players have always gone to great lengths to decipher the non-verbal signals that opponents use to communicate on the field: using buried buzzers, military-grade telescopes, even cameras. In 2017, a respected veteran named Carlos Beltran joined the Houston Astros. Aided by the ...

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Ep 4: Thank God We Got Osuna

October 21, 2020 • 52 mins

The 2018 Astros were even more talented than the previous season’s champions. There was just one problem: they couldn’t count on their closer. The good news? There was a great one, named Roberto Osuna, available on the trade market – but Osuna had been suspended for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend. While many clubs wouldn’t even consider bringing him on, Jeff Luhnow’s Astros swooped in. It was the moment when many realized just...

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Ep 5: The Storm

October 28, 2020 • 49 mins

The revelation of the Astros’ trash can-banging, sign-stealing scheme ignited a firestorm. Players emerged to say that they’d known the Astros had been up to something – like Danny Farquhar, a former White Sox reliever who’d been the first to detect suspiciously-timed sounds from Houston’s dugout. But the scandal really accelerated on the internet, where amateur sleuths like Tony Adams scoured video evidence to figure out what exac...

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Ep 6, Part 1: Codebreaker

November 4, 2020 • 50 mins

After an intensive investigation, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred issued his report about the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal and punishments for some of its key figures. G.M. Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch received year-long suspensions, and were quickly fired by the Astros. But did the right people face consequences? In part 1 of our season finale, Luhnow breaks his silence about who knew what and when they knew it - and reve...

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Ep 6, Part 2: Astroworld

November 11, 2020 • 63 mins

In the conclusion of our series finale, the Astros return for the 2020 season as the villains of baseball – without their fired G.M. Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch. Meanwhile, skepticism rages about whether justice was served. Other developments in baseball raise questions about who really loses – and who wins – in a world where everyone is seeking an edge. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: ht...

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