Game 4 of the American League Championship Series is set for Thursday night at Yankee Stadium. The Astros have won the last two games to take the series lead, but there's been a lot of chatter about two particular topics during this matchup: pitch tipping and sign stealing. 

Specifically, the Astros have been accused of tipping pitches by whistling in Game 1 (when they didn't score a single run, mind you). 

I would like to dig in on the word "accused" there, though, because I don't know if it's necessary. An accusation signals there was the suspicion of wrongdoing. As Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports, MLB investigated the matter and found the Astros haven't broken any rules. 

Meanwhile, I'm sitting here smirking at all this ado about nothing. 

Maybe you, the baseball fan, played the game growing up. Remember being taught that when an opposing player gets on second base that the catcher needs to flash three signs and, say, the second one was the actual pitch? Doing this prevented the baserunner from relaying to the batter what pitch was coming. Thirteen-year-olds are capable of preventing sign stealing.

If you're a casual fan and didn't know this, watch when big-league catchers show their signs to the pitcher. They drop their glove hand over the outside of their leg and that's to block the view of the base coach and the dugout while also turning the opposite leg a bit more crooked to block the other side. It's a method taught starting in around middle school years to prevent sign stealing. 

Things are much more intricate in Major League Baseball and they aren't allowed to use technology in trying to get the signs. But man, if anything the Astros should be commended for being able to get the Yankees' signs, if they have them. The response should be "clean it up, then, Yankees." 

I anonymously spoke with a few former MLB players, and they had a similar response. Here's a sampling of what they told me: 

"Why wouldn't you try to steal signs? If you can have an edge then you should." 

"Part of the game. Get over it and play." 

"It was my job to camouflage them." 

"If it's even true, it's not at all a big deal. Someone needs to shut up and play baseball." 

"It's a joke it's even being talked about." 

Stealing signs is as old as the game itself. One of the most famous home runs in baseball history, Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" was a result of a sign-stealing operation. 

I thought of the phrase, "if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying," but it's not even cheating. Masking signs from all the way from youth leagues to MLB is not only saying sign stealing is acceptable, it's giving it tacit approval. There's no rule against it and teams are expected to protect against it. 

asSign stealing is part of the game and always will be. If a team is having its signs stolen, it needs to do a better job mixing them up.