I wanted to bring the Huston Astros’ cheating scandal to light in my edition of shocking art. While I was working at Blair Field, I noticed that there was a trashcan in the visiting dugout, and while that may not be an unusual sight, it made me think about how the Huston Astros used trashcans to gain an unfair advantage in the 2017 MLB season. In case you don’t know, the Astros placed a camera in the outfield at Minute Maid Park, their home stadium, and used the live feed from that camera to steal the opposing teams signs. Once the signs were stolen, the person watching the monitor with the live feed would bang on a trashcan to inform the batter what pitch would be coming. One bang on the trashcan meant a fastball was coming, two bangs was a curve ball and so on. Seeing the trashcan and shovel right next to one another really reminded me of this controversy. I chose to do this idea because baseball is something that I am passionate about, and this scandal is one of the worst in the history of baseball. There are some baseball pitchers in the major leagues that have said they would rather face a player that was using steroid than face a batter that knew what pitch was coming. I hoped to communicate that cheating is something that will always happen. It doesn’t matter if it is professional sports, or taking tests, there will always be cheaters. If there was no description, I don’t think it would be the most successful just because not everyone follows baseball and would understand the reference. If I did this again, I would try to do something that more people would understand and be effected by without having to read the description. Another idea that I might want to explore through shocking art is how much sugar the average person eats in a day.
Cade Middaugh 