Yankees Thought Red Sox' Doug Fister Was Using Mouthguard as Secret Listening Device

The Yankees thought Red Sox pitcher Doug Fister was on some super-secret spy stuff. Turns out he wasn't.

In the ongoing sign-stealing scandal unfurling between the Red Sox and Yankees, we have a new, goofy twist to add. According to Comcast Sports Net New England's Evan Drellich, the allegations levied by New York against Boston over a series back in August—one in which a group of players and coaches decoded and swiped hand signals using video and Apple Watches—were followed last week by a complaint from the Yankees that Red Sox pitcher Doug Fister was wearing an earpiece to relay audio to him during his start in the Bronx last Friday. But that bit of spy trickery was apparently misconstrued by the Yankees; it turns out that the would-be listening device on Fister's ear was just his mouthguard.

Behold the visual evidence, as captured by YES Network cameras during the eighth inning of Boston's 4–1 win (with the screencap via Drellich).

CSSNE.com

As Drellich notes, Fister never took the mound with anything over his ear. That the Yankees took this complaint to the league suggests a bit of gamesmanship on their part—par for the course in this whole dustup, as the Red Sox fired back with a spying claim of their own (one involving YES Network cameras, no less) after their high-tech sign stealing was uncovered. Or maybe New York's front office was just grossed out by a man putting a used mouthguard on his ear and wanted to call him out on that.