Iām not sure I understand all of the sympathy towards Cora.
Maybe itās because everyone cheats. When the Saints got busted for bountygate, there was a lot of league sympathy for Sean Payton because everyone knew he was a scapegoat for something every team was doing.
Not sure we can make the claim that āeveryoneā does, but it is true that cheating has always been part of sports, especially Major League Baseball. Cheating your way to a WS win and tarnishing the reputations of great players from the opposing team is pretty despicable. Canāt say it hasnāt happened before.
Regardless, while you make a valid point, it doesnāt change the egregious nature of the violation. I do accept that there will always be cheating, but Iām not sure that excuses sympathy towards what some might deem as criminal behavior. And in my opinion it most definitely is.
Was the purported use of juiced baseballs ever proven? I thought it was due to steroid juice?
I checked out on baseball after the 1994 strike. They tried to revive interest in the game by looking the other way on steroid use. Players are grossly overpaid with guaranteed contracts. Nothing there to really bring me back.
I am very suspicious of the hearts and flowers departure Cora had from the Red Sox. This smells like the Red Sox trying to keep him happy so that he doesnāt expose whatever cheating he did while working for them.
I say this as a lifelong Red Sox fan. They have always been my American League team.
Beltran out as well. No surprise.
@sancho is right, cheating is rampant. But thereās cheating and then thereās cheating. This cheating was sophisticated, highly organized, from the top, and violated a clearly stated rule laid out in an e-mail to every club from the Commissioner. It also worked well, or they wouldnāt have kept doing it (and thereās plenty of evidence the Astros were an offensive terror when they played at home). Iām really furious about this. (And I am not yelling at Sancho, just at the scoundrels who did this.)
Hey, I didnāt say it was justified because everyone cheats! I was just trying to explain why some in the league are sympathetics to those who are being punished.
How do you know that wasnāt dubbed in? The whistling is so feint that itās unlikely that it could be heard in the stadium. Iāve heard that Altuve was wearing an electronic jersey.
I donāt know anything about that YouTube video except that I saw it and thought it was interesting. I report, you decide. No, waitā¦
Seriously I thought the signal was a trashcan banging or something like that. This is the first Iāve heard of whistles. I did notice, however, that the Dodgers scored 12 runs on the Astros in that game and did it without cheating. Just an observation.
Great article. Most involved are getting away with it. And the MLB is allowing it to happen.
Iād be careful categorizing any of the top teams as not cheating. The original story that broke all this indicated every top level team is believed to be doing it, the Astros were just dumb enough to make it blatant.
Cheating in baseball is rampant and has been for decades
I promise to eat my words if it turns out the Dodgers cheated.
It is true that cheating has always been part of the game. Bobby Thomsonās āShot heard around the worldā came off a stolen signā¦against the Dodgers.
If there are other scandals, I hope they come out and whoever is responsible is disciplined.
In the meantime, Iād like to focus on the team that cheated their way to a WS victory.
The mystery of why players havenāt been punished is now solved. I just read this in an article in the Wall Street Journal:
BeltrĆ”n, whom the Mets hired in November following a Hall of Fame-caliber career as an outfielder, received no punishment from Manfred. His status as a player on the 2017 Astros, rather than a coach, left him immune, since Manfred agreed to grant leniency to players in exchange for honest testimony, according to several people familiar with the matter. In his report Manfred said that the large number of players who participated, benefited or knew about the Astrosā sign-stealing made penalizing any individual ādifficult and impractical.ā
So there you have it. Manfred basically granted the players some level of immunity so he could get to the bottom of the scandal.
The rest of the article is behind a paywall, but here is the link if anyone wants to use it:
Itās sort of odd that a mostly player lead scheme resulted in MLB granting immunity to the players in order to go after those who didnāt report it.
āWe donāt care about the people who did it, we just care about the ones who didnāt say anythingā.
Frankly Iām guessing it has far more to do with the CBA expiring 12-01-2021
I wonder if these calls for stripping the Astros of their title will have any effect? I donāt know what authority the MLB commissioner has to take such action.
I agree ā because of the union contract itās got to be much harder for the commissioner to discipline players than management.