9 ms·

Say It Is So: Baseball’s Disgrace

76 points by samclemens 7y ago

anm89 7y ago
> Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ball game, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing a game are planned and discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball. I love this language, and it sticks out because it's in such stark contrast to anything a large organization would say today. It doesn't sugarcoat anything, it takes full responsibility, no double speak, no marketing euphemisms. And it says what they are going to do about it. I think people somehow feel they are exposing themselves these days with that level of transparency, and maybe they are right. But I know that if I heard people speaking like this I would be drastically more likely to trust them and their brands. I would like to think it's still possible to communicate this way in the modern world.
slg 7y ago
>But Manfred also did something that may simply have been stupid, may have been craven, and may have been corrupt: extending blanket immunity to the players before launching a proper investigation Players would refuse to testify without immunity and without player testimony it would be incredibly difficult to find the details of the cheating scheme. It also isn't even clear if MLB has the legal authority to punish players for this type of rule violation. The player's union has stated that MLB does not have that authority and MLB did not wish to fight them on it with a potential labor dispute already pending over league finances when the current collective bargaining agreement expires soon. >Until and unless Commissioner Manfred lifts his ludicrous immunity offer and deals severely with the incriminated participating players as well as their management by banishing them all from the game, he will have thrown baseball back to where it was in 1919. I personally think offering immunity to get players to testify and then reversing course and using that testimony to punish those players would do much more harm to baseball than this scandal.
- take_a_breath 7y ago
  ==I personally think offering immunity to get players to testify and then reversing course and using that testimony to punish those players would do much more harm to baseball than this scandal.== This could very well be true. As is, the MLB has created a precedent for cheating without ever having to face penalties.
  - slg 7y ago
    I am on board if they create a new rule that applies punishments from this point forward. There should not be an ex post facto rule that is used to justify punishments that were eliminated as a possibility through both collective bargaining and the immunity deals.
- jellicle 7y ago
  Alternatively, if they started handing out lifetime bans to everyone fully or peripherally involved, you can expect the peripheral ones to come forward with all they know, hoping to avoid the ban.
  - slg 7y ago
    You can’t just hand out lifetime bans without strong evidence of clear rule violations. A lifetime ban is stripping literally hundreds of millions of dollars from players. There would be years of legal battles if MLB tried to do it. The only way to get strong evidence of who cheated and how they cheated is through interviews and the players wouldn’t interview without immunity. MLB simply had no good options that would allow them to directly punish players.
binarymax 7y ago
Here's a fun (semi) technical video on using machine learning for sign stealing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmlRbfSavbI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmlRbfSavbI I wonder if the signs employed by Major League teams are as simple as the ones dissected above?
jedberg 7y ago
I was chatting with some friends about the Astros the other day, and they pointed out something interesting. This has caused a renewed interest in baseball. It will probably increase attendance anywhere they Astros play, because people will want to come out and root for their local team to "beat the cheaters". It'll be interesting to see how the attendance numbers this season play out.
- soapboxrocket 7y ago
  The old no press is bad press theory in action. It will be interesting to see what actually happens when the season starts and moves into the all-star break.
gfs 7y ago
One of the wildest statistics I have seen from all of the fallout of this scandal is the fact that Clayton Kershaw had thrown 51 breaking balls and got zero missed swings. [0] I can't believe this didn't stand out sooner to analysts or if it just got glossed over. I still think hitting a round ball with a round bat is one of the hardest if not the hardest things to do in sports. And to not get a single swing and miss on a pitch that is around 70 - 80 MPH and breaking around half a foot is insane. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/f7w3yq/kershaw_threw_51_breaking_ballssliders_in_game_5/ https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/f7w3yq/kershaw_th...
- rwmurrayVT 7y ago
  To throw a mix of pitches and get zero missed swings on one of the biggest movement pitches in the league... is extremely unlikely. It's not like he was having an off day. His pitches were on point the entire time. It's not like his breaking balls weren't breaking like normal or anything else. It's hilarious to think he was tipping the pitches.
- kodablah 7y ago
  Darvish too was a swing-and-miss pitcher (albeit admittedly wild) who was openly mocked by Astros players. He struggled mightily during the series. Granted he had been trending downward which continued after the series.
  - snarf21 7y ago
    But confidence is its own downward spiral.
  - goatherders 7y ago
    He was mocked by one player and it had nothing to do with his pitching.
  - adams_at 7y ago
    I'm the Astros fan who created http://signstealingscandal.com http://signstealingscandal.com, so I'm definitely not saying they didn't cheat. They cheated in the regular season (I documented over 1,100 bangs). And I'm almost certain the Astros were cheating during the 2017 World Series. An interesting point though, in Darvish's 2 World Series starts (1 away, 1 at home), he threw 3.1 innings and gave up 8 earned runs (4 in each game). The other Dodgers pitchers threw 13.2 innings in those games and gave up 0 earned runs. I think it's possible the Astros were stealing signs and Darvish was tipping pitches.
Spooky23 7y ago
I'm sure that we'll find all sorts of schemes like this in other sports as well in the US. Pretty obvious and easy reason why: legal sports betting is a $155B market growing at 8% annually in the US. I'd be curious to see who was making money off of the Astros. There's way too much money chasing outcomes. Plenty of these players are vulnerable to different influence strategies.
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  athletes risk their lives cheating all the time, throughout all history, without even any financial incentive. race car drivers using fake, lighter roll cages, cyclists using EPO to make their blood so thick they might die in their sleep, baseball players using cocaine and steroids. this happens not just where there is big money but amateur ranks where nothing is on the line except winning.
- karatestomp 7y ago
  I had a little insight into the esports gambling world at one point and it answered some questions for me about why there's so much money being thrown around there. I'm guessing (no evidence, but a strong hunch) there are a ton of shenanigans going on, as that whole side of things has a very wild-west feel yet there's a lot of money moving around. Some folks at the same place helped me figure out what Venmo's social transaction messages are useful for: illegal gambling pools. I'd been wondering why those features exist or who'd want them, then saw it used for that purpose. Suddenly made sense.
  - lozaning 7y ago
    Can you explain more by what you mean about the Venmo stuff, its sounds super interesting. Are you saying that someone out there is doing crowd sourced intelligence for increased win modeling, based on the messages people put in their venmo transactions? Or that the default public nature of the ledger is such that people can see that the bookie (I think im using that right) is getting money from other counter parties and proves their ability to pay out in the future?
    - 7y ago
apl002 7y ago
"A perfect sports scandal for the age of Trump." Tying anything and everything to Trump is so tiresome and has nothing to do with the article, the Astros scandal, or the actions of commissioner landis/manfred.
- zentiggr 7y ago
  I'd argue that Manfred's blanket immunity for guilty players has a lot in common with Trump's constant actions to paint all of his confederates as victims and scapegoats and pardoning a whole skein of cheats and con artists... There seems to be a theme amongst so many concentrations of money that basically centers around "hey, we're already making this much, why not pull any bs we can and make even more? Let the losers lose, cause they're losers anyway."
- techopoly 7y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted -- I think your comment is a perfectly reasonable statement to make.
  - apl002 7y ago
    partisanship has got to be at all time highs. My comment is likely seen as me defending trump and therefore anyone who dislikes trump just automatically downvotes it regardless of context. 2020 is awesome
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jessaustin 7y ago
  Well, they are orange.
- irishcoffee 7y ago
  The amusing part is, I can say with some amount of confidence that the Astros still would have done this if HRC has won. How the sitting president has any bearing on this is beyond me. Was deflate gate somehow a reflection on Obama?
throwaway5752 7y ago
Cheating to win is a universe apart from cheating to lose (or putting yourself in a position where you could be pressured to do so, like Pete Rose) when it comes to the integrity of the game. I completely support the punishments MLB/Manfred handed out and would support more. But throwing games for money (Black Sox scandal, alluded to in the article's title attributed to a child saying "Say it ain't" so to Shoeless Joe Jackson) is different than sign stealing. I suspect the managers, coaches, and front office staff will have informal punishments of being blacklisted out of the sport for life.
- monadic2 7y ago
  How does it ruin the game less than people throwing the it? It’s not an earnest competition, which is the point of watching. Allowing steroids (something I am not in favor of) would ruin the game far less than breaking the premise of the game between the pitcher and batter. Frankly I think it should be a crime to cheat—make the people have something to lose that hurts more than money.
  - aguyfromnb 7y ago
    >Frankly I think it should be a crime to cheat—make the people have something to lose that hurts more than money. Why is the answer to everything "throw them in jail", at a huge cost to taxpayers?
  - ksdale 7y ago
    Maybe I'm just cynical, but I've always just assumed that everyone in pro sports is cheating in basically every way they think they can get away with. I never had a problem with Lance Armstrong cheating because I assumed everyone else near the top of the pack was also cheating. If everyone cheats, it is absolutely still an earnest competition. Lots of other guys probably took just as many steroids as Barry Bonds did and didn't hit anywhere near as many home runs. I also think that there need to be rules that are enforced, because there's no game without rules, but the rules are always inherently arbitrary, and I've never felt the urge to heap moral blame on the cheaters in addition to whatever punishment they get for breaking the rules... I guess I sort of unconsciously took the position that as long as no one is getting like, physically injured, bending the rules as far as they'll go (and breaking them sometimes) is just part of the game, and penalties are penalties. It's hard for me to see much of a distinction between taking strategic fouls and violating the rules in other ways, weighing the likelihood of getting caught against the potential gain. Despite all of this, I don't cheat when I play sports nor would I teach my kids to cheat, but when millions of dollars are on the line (maybe because there are millions of dollars on the line), it doesn't bother me that anyone would try to gain any possible advantage.
ohithereyou 7y ago
Wait, does anybody actually believe any major sport doesn't look the other way when the right team cheats assuming it gets more butts in seats? Major sports aren't about the purity of the game. They're about money - pure and simple. If MLB could replace all of the players with robots that played a game simulated on a computer, designed to play out a storyline as a drama instead of a legitimate competition, and make more money doing it then they would in a heartbeat and not lose a wink of sleep over it.
unethical_ban 7y ago
I'll throw in some alternate viewpoints from friends who support the Astros. The narrative I have heard is that this really is something that many teams do, to varying extents. That the Yankees have done it for years, and in fact that the Astros just expanded on what the Yankees were doing while Beltran was there. That sign-stealing is part of the game, it isn't against the rules, and that most players who are complaining are in a gray area of hypocrisy, because they're mad they weren't in the loop on the tactic. My friends further believe that the Astros are being used as the patsies for all of MLB. The Astros will take the public blame for something most teams do or wish they thought of, and now all MLB will get on the same page about allowing or banning stealing like this. These opinions are not my own, but I haven't seen the opinions or viewpoints of Astros defenders online - so here it is.
- irishcoffee 7y ago
  Sign stealing is part of the game... if you’re a runner on 2nd. They were using cameras in center field, no?
  - unethical_ban 7y ago
    The assertion by those I spoke with is that teams have been low-key sign stealing from cameras and other mechanisms for decades.
WhompingWindows 7y ago
I think baseball is an extremely uninteresting sport. The pace of the game is very slow, as every batter is swinging for the fences, stepping out of the box, and there is usually no action for over 3 hours of "playing" time. What is the game today? On a time-basis, baseball is 99% players standing around waiting for something to occur. Gone are the days of defensive brilliance and working players around the bases methodically with short hits, speed, and finesse. I won't miss baseball in the Olympics and I think it's rightfully falling to other much more interesting and engaging sports. The idea it is our "national pastime" is just laughable to me. What's more, where I live, we had the Pawtucket PawSox try to extort Providence and RI for massive tax breaks and a premium parcel of downtown Providence land. Thankfully, Rhode Islanders called their bluff and let them move to Worcester. I'm glad my state acknowledged baseball is an incredibly slow-paced and yawn-inducing sport and we didn't want to pay through the nose for a stadium that hardly any of us would enjoy having.
- maverick2007 7y ago
  It's funny you say that it's a negative because I think that's a positive. It's one of my favorite things to do to load up my team's games (Tampa Bay Rays fan here!) on MLB.tv and work on my side project while I watch the games. When the game is going slowly I'll pay more attention on my projects and vice versa. But the actual game play is my least favorite part about baseball. I absolutely love the theory and statistics that goes into the front office decisions. It's this interesting mix of economics and game theory and negotiation theory. My favorite team is notoriously cash strapped (read: cheap) and I think it's fascinating watching the team wheel and deal to try to compete with teams that literally spend 2x-3x as much as they do
  - hogFeast 7y ago
    Yep, I think people who say they think it is boring really don't understand what these sports are about. Two examples are golf and cricket. Both take days so the action clearly isn't important. If you go live, it is about the day out, having some beers with your mates, relaxing (tbf, golf has managed this far better than cricket which has had to move to shorter formats). Watching at home, it is the same thing. Relaxing, having a good time with your mates, whatever. It is true, nothing is going to compare to seeing an "action sport" live: boxing, a huge soccer game...very little in life compares. But I think there is room for other stuff too: stats, stories, experiences, etc. (tbh, I think action sports are going to struggle against Esports too). I am a big soccer fan but rarely watch games, I just follow the story and the stats (and bet on games). Viewership has gone through the roof because the stories are just so compelling (and yes, the money too nowadays). I hope that sport doesn't become "all action, all the time" though. Again, nothing compares to action but you can't watch that every day.
watertom 7y ago
Frankly basketball, baseball, and to some degree football are all taking on a WWF feel. I’ve basically stopped watching all pro sports, I was an athlete in school, and for a long time and avid sports fan, but no more. The rule changes in the NBA, caused me to drop the sport, the PED scandal of MLB caused me to drop MLB, and the rule changes to football are making it feel a whole lot like The NBA. I didn’t watch a single NFL game last season, and I only DVRed the NFL playoff games, and only skipped through one game, deleting the rest. Even college sports have lost their appeal. Only one sport left and that’s boxing, but the pay per view rates have caused me to stop buying those events. I think pro spots have peaked and will continue to decline.
goatherders 7y ago
I am an Astros fan and baseball fanatic, so I have a lot to say here as do most people that fit in one or both of the above designations. I'm getting to the thread a little late so it's possible (probable) that no one will read this but I feel a bit better letting it out. 1. We cheated and got caught. On one hand the penalties are pretty severe. Draft picks mean that in 5-8 years we may be awful again. AJ Hinch was a DAMN good manager and when the Mets hire him in a year I'm going to be sad. Jose Altuve - for whom there is no evidence that he cheated - is one of the best hitters of the last decade and may never make the HOF b/c of this. The penalties individually and collectively are not small. On the other hand, I agree that more punishment could have been handed out. 2. MLB has done a TERRIBLE job explaining that not only was immunity essential for getting the truth but also that punishing players would wind up in a YEARS-long dispute with the Player's Association. Fans and the sport alike get all pissy that there is no official record of steriod users...well immunity wasn't offered. Can't have it both ways. 3. MLB is also shooting itself in the foot not releasing the Red Sox report during the height of the Astros story. It is probable that the 2018 champs will ALSO be exposed as cheaters. ANd they had the MVP that year as well. I will smirk at least a little when the Astros hatred starts to abait in June just in time for the Red Sox to re-kindle the story. 3. I have friends that work in Baseball. Of course it's speculation but 3 of them independent of each other have told me that the 3 teams that cheat the most are Houston, LAD, and Arizona. ANd all 3 conversations ended with the punchline of how little the Diamondbacks have to show for their cheating. 4. The sanctimony in baseball is comical AND sad. No sport likes to eat it's young like baseball. The same reporters that used the 1998 home run race to their benefit now vote against steroid players getting into the HOF. Anything to protect your 2 inches in the Sunday edition, fellas. LOL 5. Being mindful of #1, anyone that thinks the cheating is limited to Houston, Boston or just a couple teams is sniffing glue. ALL teams and players creep as close to the line as possible. Are there players that refuse to participate? ABSOLUTELY. Are there teams that play every game on the up and up? No way. There is simply too much at stake and the transfer of players and execs and coaches between teams means that the knowledge of skirting the rules isn't limited to Houston. 5b. You want examples? The team that closes the dome to induce more short fly balls. The team that lets the grass grow longer to make grounders in the infield slow down. The team that overwaters the dirt in the base-paths to slow runners. on and on and on. 6. MLB allowing ANY current-game film in the clubhouse is so stupid as to defy words. So a batter can walk into the clubhouse and review the at-bat he completed 30 seconds ago to look at pitch sequences and locations.....that's okay? Absolutely STUPID. Suggested result: eliminate replay on anything but scoring plays. Remove replay in the clubhouse and prohibit players from leaving the dugout except for bio-breaks with an MLB escort. 7. Finally, if anything ever drives me away from baseball it will be this: the "inside" baseball talk. Reporters and players and former players that patronize fans with things like "you wouldn't understand..." or "there is a game within the game..." A sport that allows/supports putting a fastball in a guy's ribs if he preens after a home run. A sport that says SOME version of sign stealing is fine BUT other versions are not.

76 points by samclemens 7y ago

> Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ball game, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing a game are planned and discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball. I love this language, and it sticks out because it's in such stark contrast to anything a large organization would say today. It doesn't sugarcoat anything, it takes full responsibility, no double speak, no marketing euphemisms. And it says what they are going to do about it. I think people somehow feel they are exposing themselves these days with that level of transparency, and maybe they are right. But I know that if I heard people speaking like this I would be drastically more likely to trust them and their brands. I would like to think it's still possible to communicate this way in the modern world.

slg 7y ago

>But Manfred also did something that may simply have been stupid, may have been craven, and may have been corrupt: extending blanket immunity to the players before launching a proper investigation Players would refuse to testify without immunity and without player testimony it would be incredibly difficult to find the details of the cheating scheme. It also isn't even clear if MLB has the legal authority to punish players for this type of rule violation. The player's union has stated that MLB does not have that authority and MLB did not wish to fight them on it with a potential labor dispute already pending over league finances when the current collective bargaining agreement expires soon. >Until and unless Commissioner Manfred lifts his ludicrous immunity offer and deals severely with the incriminated participating players as well as their management by banishing them all from the game, he will have thrown baseball back to where it was in 1919. I personally think offering immunity to get players to testify and then reversing course and using that testimony to punish those players would do much more harm to baseball than this scandal.

take_a_breath 7y ago
==I personally think offering immunity to get players to testify and then reversing course and using that testimony to punish those players would do much more harm to baseball than this scandal.== This could very well be true. As is, the MLB has created a precedent for cheating without ever having to face penalties.
- slg 7y ago
  I am on board if they create a new rule that applies punishments from this point forward. There should not be an ex post facto rule that is used to justify punishments that were eliminated as a possibility through both collective bargaining and the immunity deals.
jellicle 7y ago
Alternatively, if they started handing out lifetime bans to everyone fully or peripherally involved, you can expect the peripheral ones to come forward with all they know, hoping to avoid the ban.
- slg 7y ago
  You can’t just hand out lifetime bans without strong evidence of clear rule violations. A lifetime ban is stripping literally hundreds of millions of dollars from players. There would be years of legal battles if MLB tried to do it. The only way to get strong evidence of who cheated and how they cheated is through interviews and the players wouldn’t interview without immunity. MLB simply had no good options that would allow them to directly punish players.

binarymax 7y ago

Here's a fun (semi) technical video on using machine learning for sign stealing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmlRbfSavbI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmlRbfSavbI I wonder if the signs employed by Major League teams are as simple as the ones dissected above?

jedberg 7y ago

I was chatting with some friends about the Astros the other day, and they pointed out something interesting. This has caused a renewed interest in baseball. It will probably increase attendance anywhere they Astros play, because people will want to come out and root for their local team to "beat the cheaters". It'll be interesting to see how the attendance numbers this season play out.

soapboxrocket 7y ago
The old no press is bad press theory in action. It will be interesting to see what actually happens when the season starts and moves into the all-star break.

gfs 7y ago

One of the wildest statistics I have seen from all of the fallout of this scandal is the fact that Clayton Kershaw had thrown 51 breaking balls and got zero missed swings. [0] I can't believe this didn't stand out sooner to analysts or if it just got glossed over. I still think hitting a round ball with a round bat is one of the hardest if not the hardest things to do in sports. And to not get a single swing and miss on a pitch that is around 70 - 80 MPH and breaking around half a foot is insane. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/f7w3yq/kershaw_threw_51_breaking_ballssliders_in_game_5/ https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/f7w3yq/kershaw_th...

rwmurrayVT 7y ago
To throw a mix of pitches and get zero missed swings on one of the biggest movement pitches in the league... is extremely unlikely. It's not like he was having an off day. His pitches were on point the entire time. It's not like his breaking balls weren't breaking like normal or anything else. It's hilarious to think he was tipping the pitches.
kodablah 7y ago
Darvish too was a swing-and-miss pitcher (albeit admittedly wild) who was openly mocked by Astros players. He struggled mightily during the series. Granted he had been trending downward which continued after the series.
- snarf21 7y ago
  But confidence is its own downward spiral.
- goatherders 7y ago
  He was mocked by one player and it had nothing to do with his pitching.
- adams_at 7y ago
  I'm the Astros fan who created http://signstealingscandal.com http://signstealingscandal.com, so I'm definitely not saying they didn't cheat. They cheated in the regular season (I documented over 1,100 bangs). And I'm almost certain the Astros were cheating during the 2017 World Series. An interesting point though, in Darvish's 2 World Series starts (1 away, 1 at home), he threw 3.1 innings and gave up 8 earned runs (4 in each game). The other Dodgers pitchers threw 13.2 innings in those games and gave up 0 earned runs. I think it's possible the Astros were stealing signs and Darvish was tipping pitches.

Spooky23 7y ago

I'm sure that we'll find all sorts of schemes like this in other sports as well in the US. Pretty obvious and easy reason why: legal sports betting is a $155B market growing at 8% annually in the US. I'd be curious to see who was making money off of the Astros. There's way too much money chasing outcomes. Plenty of these players are vulnerable to different influence strategies.

gameswithgo 7y ago
athletes risk their lives cheating all the time, throughout all history, without even any financial incentive. race car drivers using fake, lighter roll cages, cyclists using EPO to make their blood so thick they might die in their sleep, baseball players using cocaine and steroids. this happens not just where there is big money but amateur ranks where nothing is on the line except winning.
karatestomp 7y ago
I had a little insight into the esports gambling world at one point and it answered some questions for me about why there's so much money being thrown around there. I'm guessing (no evidence, but a strong hunch) there are a ton of shenanigans going on, as that whole side of things has a very wild-west feel yet there's a lot of money moving around. Some folks at the same place helped me figure out what Venmo's social transaction messages are useful for: illegal gambling pools. I'd been wondering why those features exist or who'd want them, then saw it used for that purpose. Suddenly made sense.
- lozaning 7y ago
  Can you explain more by what you mean about the Venmo stuff, its sounds super interesting. Are you saying that someone out there is doing crowd sourced intelligence for increased win modeling, based on the messages people put in their venmo transactions? Or that the default public nature of the ledger is such that people can see that the bookie (I think im using that right) is getting money from other counter parties and proves their ability to pay out in the future?
  - 7y ago

apl002 7y ago

"A perfect sports scandal for the age of Trump." Tying anything and everything to Trump is so tiresome and has nothing to do with the article, the Astros scandal, or the actions of commissioner landis/manfred.

zentiggr 7y ago
I'd argue that Manfred's blanket immunity for guilty players has a lot in common with Trump's constant actions to paint all of his confederates as victims and scapegoats and pardoning a whole skein of cheats and con artists... There seems to be a theme amongst so many concentrations of money that basically centers around "hey, we're already making this much, why not pull any bs we can and make even more? Let the losers lose, cause they're losers anyway."
techopoly 7y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted -- I think your comment is a perfectly reasonable statement to make.
- apl002 7y ago
  partisanship has got to be at all time highs. My comment is likely seen as me defending trump and therefore anyone who dislikes trump just automatically downvotes it regardless of context. 2020 is awesome
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jessaustin 7y ago
Well, they are orange.
irishcoffee 7y ago
The amusing part is, I can say with some amount of confidence that the Astros still would have done this if HRC has won. How the sitting president has any bearing on this is beyond me. Was deflate gate somehow a reflection on Obama?

throwaway5752 7y ago

Cheating to win is a universe apart from cheating to lose (or putting yourself in a position where you could be pressured to do so, like Pete Rose) when it comes to the integrity of the game. I completely support the punishments MLB/Manfred handed out and would support more. But throwing games for money (Black Sox scandal, alluded to in the article's title attributed to a child saying "Say it ain't" so to Shoeless Joe Jackson) is different than sign stealing. I suspect the managers, coaches, and front office staff will have informal punishments of being blacklisted out of the sport for life.

monadic2 7y ago
How does it ruin the game less than people throwing the it? It’s not an earnest competition, which is the point of watching. Allowing steroids (something I am not in favor of) would ruin the game far less than breaking the premise of the game between the pitcher and batter. Frankly I think it should be a crime to cheat—make the people have something to lose that hurts more than money.
- aguyfromnb 7y ago
  >Frankly I think it should be a crime to cheat—make the people have something to lose that hurts more than money. Why is the answer to everything "throw them in jail", at a huge cost to taxpayers?
- ksdale 7y ago
  Maybe I'm just cynical, but I've always just assumed that everyone in pro sports is cheating in basically every way they think they can get away with. I never had a problem with Lance Armstrong cheating because I assumed everyone else near the top of the pack was also cheating. If everyone cheats, it is absolutely still an earnest competition. Lots of other guys probably took just as many steroids as Barry Bonds did and didn't hit anywhere near as many home runs. I also think that there need to be rules that are enforced, because there's no game without rules, but the rules are always inherently arbitrary, and I've never felt the urge to heap moral blame on the cheaters in addition to whatever punishment they get for breaking the rules... I guess I sort of unconsciously took the position that as long as no one is getting like, physically injured, bending the rules as far as they'll go (and breaking them sometimes) is just part of the game, and penalties are penalties. It's hard for me to see much of a distinction between taking strategic fouls and violating the rules in other ways, weighing the likelihood of getting caught against the potential gain. Despite all of this, I don't cheat when I play sports nor would I teach my kids to cheat, but when millions of dollars are on the line (maybe because there are millions of dollars on the line), it doesn't bother me that anyone would try to gain any possible advantage.

ohithereyou 7y ago

Wait, does anybody actually believe any major sport doesn't look the other way when the right team cheats assuming it gets more butts in seats? Major sports aren't about the purity of the game. They're about money - pure and simple. If MLB could replace all of the players with robots that played a game simulated on a computer, designed to play out a storyline as a drama instead of a legitimate competition, and make more money doing it then they would in a heartbeat and not lose a wink of sleep over it.

unethical_ban 7y ago

I'll throw in some alternate viewpoints from friends who support the Astros. The narrative I have heard is that this really is something that many teams do, to varying extents. That the Yankees have done it for years, and in fact that the Astros just expanded on what the Yankees were doing while Beltran was there. That sign-stealing is part of the game, it isn't against the rules, and that most players who are complaining are in a gray area of hypocrisy, because they're mad they weren't in the loop on the tactic. My friends further believe that the Astros are being used as the patsies for all of MLB. The Astros will take the public blame for something most teams do or wish they thought of, and now all MLB will get on the same page about allowing or banning stealing like this. These opinions are not my own, but I haven't seen the opinions or viewpoints of Astros defenders online - so here it is.

irishcoffee 7y ago
Sign stealing is part of the game... if you’re a runner on 2nd. They were using cameras in center field, no?
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  The assertion by those I spoke with is that teams have been low-key sign stealing from cameras and other mechanisms for decades.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

I think baseball is an extremely uninteresting sport. The pace of the game is very slow, as every batter is swinging for the fences, stepping out of the box, and there is usually no action for over 3 hours of "playing" time. What is the game today? On a time-basis, baseball is 99% players standing around waiting for something to occur. Gone are the days of defensive brilliance and working players around the bases methodically with short hits, speed, and finesse. I won't miss baseball in the Olympics and I think it's rightfully falling to other much more interesting and engaging sports. The idea it is our "national pastime" is just laughable to me. What's more, where I live, we had the Pawtucket PawSox try to extort Providence and RI for massive tax breaks and a premium parcel of downtown Providence land. Thankfully, Rhode Islanders called their bluff and let them move to Worcester. I'm glad my state acknowledged baseball is an incredibly slow-paced and yawn-inducing sport and we didn't want to pay through the nose for a stadium that hardly any of us would enjoy having.

maverick2007 7y ago
It's funny you say that it's a negative because I think that's a positive. It's one of my favorite things to do to load up my team's games (Tampa Bay Rays fan here!) on MLB.tv and work on my side project while I watch the games. When the game is going slowly I'll pay more attention on my projects and vice versa. But the actual game play is my least favorite part about baseball. I absolutely love the theory and statistics that goes into the front office decisions. It's this interesting mix of economics and game theory and negotiation theory. My favorite team is notoriously cash strapped (read: cheap) and I think it's fascinating watching the team wheel and deal to try to compete with teams that literally spend 2x-3x as much as they do
- hogFeast 7y ago
  Yep, I think people who say they think it is boring really don't understand what these sports are about. Two examples are golf and cricket. Both take days so the action clearly isn't important. If you go live, it is about the day out, having some beers with your mates, relaxing (tbf, golf has managed this far better than cricket which has had to move to shorter formats). Watching at home, it is the same thing. Relaxing, having a good time with your mates, whatever. It is true, nothing is going to compare to seeing an "action sport" live: boxing, a huge soccer game...very little in life compares. But I think there is room for other stuff too: stats, stories, experiences, etc. (tbh, I think action sports are going to struggle against Esports too). I am a big soccer fan but rarely watch games, I just follow the story and the stats (and bet on games). Viewership has gone through the roof because the stories are just so compelling (and yes, the money too nowadays). I hope that sport doesn't become "all action, all the time" though. Again, nothing compares to action but you can't watch that every day.

watertom 7y ago

Frankly basketball, baseball, and to some degree football are all taking on a WWF feel. I’ve basically stopped watching all pro sports, I was an athlete in school, and for a long time and avid sports fan, but no more. The rule changes in the NBA, caused me to drop the sport, the PED scandal of MLB caused me to drop MLB, and the rule changes to football are making it feel a whole lot like The NBA. I didn’t watch a single NFL game last season, and I only DVRed the NFL playoff games, and only skipped through one game, deleting the rest. Even college sports have lost their appeal. Only one sport left and that’s boxing, but the pay per view rates have caused me to stop buying those events. I think pro spots have peaked and will continue to decline.

goatherders 7y ago

I am an Astros fan and baseball fanatic, so I have a lot to say here as do most people that fit in one or both of the above designations. I'm getting to the thread a little late so it's possible (probable) that no one will read this but I feel a bit better letting it out. 1. We cheated and got caught. On one hand the penalties are pretty severe. Draft picks mean that in 5-8 years we may be awful again. AJ Hinch was a DAMN good manager and when the Mets hire him in a year I'm going to be sad. Jose Altuve - for whom there is no evidence that he cheated - is one of the best hitters of the last decade and may never make the HOF b/c of this. The penalties individually and collectively are not small. On the other hand, I agree that more punishment could have been handed out. 2. MLB has done a TERRIBLE job explaining that not only was immunity essential for getting the truth but also that punishing players would wind up in a YEARS-long dispute with the Player's Association. Fans and the sport alike get all pissy that there is no official record of steriod users...well immunity wasn't offered. Can't have it both ways. 3. MLB is also shooting itself in the foot not releasing the Red Sox report during the height of the Astros story. It is probable that the 2018 champs will ALSO be exposed as cheaters. ANd they had the MVP that year as well. I will smirk at least a little when the Astros hatred starts to abait in June just in time for the Red Sox to re-kindle the story. 3. I have friends that work in Baseball. Of course it's speculation but 3 of them independent of each other have told me that the 3 teams that cheat the most are Houston, LAD, and Arizona. ANd all 3 conversations ended with the punchline of how little the Diamondbacks have to show for their cheating. 4. The sanctimony in baseball is comical AND sad. No sport likes to eat it's young like baseball. The same reporters that used the 1998 home run race to their benefit now vote against steroid players getting into the HOF. Anything to protect your 2 inches in the Sunday edition, fellas. LOL 5. Being mindful of #1, anyone that thinks the cheating is limited to Houston, Boston or just a couple teams is sniffing glue. ALL teams and players creep as close to the line as possible. Are there players that refuse to participate? ABSOLUTELY. Are there teams that play every game on the up and up? No way. There is simply too much at stake and the transfer of players and execs and coaches between teams means that the knowledge of skirting the rules isn't limited to Houston. 5b. You want examples? The team that closes the dome to induce more short fly balls. The team that lets the grass grow longer to make grounders in the infield slow down. The team that overwaters the dirt in the base-paths to slow runners. on and on and on. 6. MLB allowing ANY current-game film in the clubhouse is so stupid as to defy words. So a batter can walk into the clubhouse and review the at-bat he completed 30 seconds ago to look at pitch sequences and locations.....that's okay? Absolutely STUPID. Suggested result: eliminate replay on anything but scoring plays. Remove replay in the clubhouse and prohibit players from leaving the dugout except for bio-breaks with an MLB escort. 7. Finally, if anything ever drives me away from baseball it will be this: the "inside" baseball talk. Reporters and players and former players that patronize fans with things like "you wouldn't understand..." or "there is a game within the game..." A sport that allows/supports putting a fastball in a guy's ribs if he preens after a home run. A sport that says SOME version of sign stealing is fine BUT other versions are not.