No question too big, no question too small. On Search Engine, host PJ Vogt answers the kinds of questions you might ask the internet when you can't sleep. If you find the world bewildering, but also sometimes enjoy being bewildered by it, Search Engine is here for you.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ..read more

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: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ..read more

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 reveals that the Astros’ scheme extended beyond trash can banging. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com ..read more

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 exactly the Astros had done. Adams’s work allowed statisticians to analyze the impact of the Astros’ scheme – and to arrive at some surprising conclusions. To learn more ..read more

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 how far the Astros would go to find a winning edge. And it was a seed that would metastasize into something deeply destructive: a shocking clubhouse incident that m ..read more

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 powerful, and largely unregulated, new technologies he had at his disposal, Beltran led the Astros to their long awaited championship – even as defeated rivals, like ..read more

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 the business and tech worlds… with controversial results. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy ..read more

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 thing Reiter hadn’t predicted or known about, a secret that wouldn’t come to light until two years later. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices ..read more

It’s the crack era.The most violent time in New York City history. The NYPD is fighting a losing battle and instead of protecting the city from drug dealers, some police officers have become them. This is the never-before told, first-person documentary of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all. From Audacy Originals and Zak Levitt, the Emmy, Peabody, and NY Press Club Investigative Journalism Award winning creator of Root of Evil, Gangster Capitalism, and Relative Unknown. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practic ..read more

Welcome to Ghostwriter, a new gripping and suspenseful podcast movie listening experience from C13Features. In Ghostwriter, Kate Mara and Adam Scott star in a psychological thriller about a former journalist who reluctantly accepts a job ghostwriting a new murder mystery novel for an eccentric billionaire. Kate Michaels has been living a solitary life after a traumatic experience, but after pressure from her rational agent and candid best friend, she begrudgingly concedes that she needs the work. As she collaborates with the enigmatic James Webber on the project, she finds herself growing depe ..read more