Astros’ cheating scandal to be subject of true-crime podcast, TV show

The Houston Astros’ cheating scandal unsurprisingly has been the talk of Major League Baseball as spring training gets underway in the wake of the league’s damning investigation into the organization’s sophisticated sign-stealing practices.

On an entirely different front, the gravity and implications of such a damning controversy has even garnered interest from the true-crime podcast world, as an investigation exploring how everything played out currently is in development.

Podcast company Cadence13 is starting a sports documentary podcast franchise, per The Hollywood Reporter, and it will kick off the new endeavor with an investigation into the Astros’ scandalous 2017 season.

Cadence13 has tabbed “Slow Burn” podcast co-creators Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons to head up the podcast. Sports Illustrated’s Ben Reiter, who wrote a cover story and book about the Astros’ scandal, will serve as writer and host of the podcast.

“The Astros of the 2010s were the most innovative organization in the history of sports,” Reiter said Thursday in a statement. “As it turned out, the ‘new way to win it all’ involved factors that no one could have imagined — myself included. Cadence13, Prologue Projects, and Left/Right are the ideal partners with whom to reveal the full story of the Astros’ exhilarating rise and shocking fall.”

Added Neyfakh, “We have long wanted to apply our narrative approach to a story that’s outside the world of politics. The Astros saga is the perfect place for us to start — in addition to being populated by amazing characters, it forces you to ask yourself hard questions about the meaning of fairness, cheating and secrecy.” 

The podcast is expected to be released sometime this summer, and a television series covering the podcast’s findings is also in the works.

It goes without saying that a deep dive into the Astros’ controversy by a true-crime podcast, a medium which continues to be all the rage, is certain to garner interest, not only from baseball fans but also devotees to the genre.