Wundry Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American scandal early and ad free right now.

Join Wundry Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. Wandering. It's September 21st, 2017, and a humid Thursday night in Houston, Texas.

At Minute Maid Park, players for the Chicago White Sox are taking the field for the bottom of the eighth inning.

White Sox relief pitcher Danny Farquhart jogs out to the mound for the first time in the game

and takes a moment to gaze up at the stands.

He sees a lot of empty seats and even more fans heading for the exits. It's late in the season and

with the hometown Astros comfortably in first place this is a fairly

meaningless game but not to Farquhar. He joined the White Sox only a month ago and he's eager to

prove himself and protect his team's two-run lead.

So when Burley pinch hitter Evan Gatis steps up to bat,

Farquhar takes a breath and looks toward home plate,

waiting for the catcher Kevin Smith to feed him a sign.

Smith gets into his catcher's squat then flashes several fingers between his knees.

It's a sign for a change-up, a deceptive pitch that looks like a fastball, but moves more slowly.

It's designed to fool the batter and make him swing early.

Farquhar nods, then he winds up and hurls the change up toward home plate.

But Gatis doesn't swing and the slow moving change up curves out of the strike zone. It's ball one.

As Farquhar gets the ball back from Smith, he frowns, thinking he heard something odd

just before his pitch, a weird banging sound. But he shrug it off and looks

back to his catcher for the next sign. Smith flashes his pinky and signal for a

fastball. Farquhar winds up again and sends a 94 mile per hour pitch screaming

over the plate. This time Gattis swings and misses for strike one. On the third pitch Smith signals another change-up and Farquhar nods again.

...