MLB wants Dodgers(Ohtani) vs Yankees(Judge) - NFL/Goodell helped the Chiefs
 

If you are a fan of either of these 2 teams you should be happy, not only do you have a good team, but you have MLB doing all they can to get these 2 teams in the World Series.

You want to make a little money keep betting these 2 in the Playoffs until they both are in the WS.

Some terrible calls favoring the Yankees and Dodgers yesterday and I expect that to continue until both are there. Similar to that crook Goodell getting the Chiefs & Taylor Swift to the Super Bowl last year. It's all about the money/TV viewers these days, not really a shocker though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw5AlGaw4ng

And I could care less about the Royals but they got screwed more than a few times yesterday. Terrible strike 3 call on Witt in the 9th, wasn't even in the zone, but umps know who to give the calls too.

Also, any notice the MLB commercial with just Judge and Ohtani yesterday. Why a commercial featuring only those 2?.....um.....I know why.

Well get ready for Godzilla vs King Kong. Feel for you fans of the other teams in the Playoffs gonna take a monster effort to beat one of these teams, 'cuz you ain't getting many calls.

The Chisholm stolen base that led to the winning run yesterday should have been overturned...he was clearly out!

Bastiches! A pox on the MLB commissioner's office. They should be caned.

:mad:

I don't think there was enough to overturn the Freddie Freeman call.

I'm neutral with respect to the Dodgers and am decidedly negative on the Yankees, but objectively as a fan of baseball, I think Dodgers - Yankees would be the most entertaining World Series.

If the Mets beat the Yankees like they beat the Red Sox in 1986, it would be better, but that would only be with the benefit of hindsight and only as a Mets fan.

I suppose the good news for those who believe that the umps are in on it is that the Dodgers can't seem to get out of the first three innings without a bunch of bombs getting hit against their starters.

Guardians and Padres.

Speaking of the Padres, this is my kind of baseball. Your starter has command, leave him in, none of this yanking him after 4 and going to the committee crap.

MLB wants
 

Although I'm sure MLB prefers the big market Series, I doubt there's a
conspiracy in place to make it happen. There's a quote out there somewhere,
which states that it's unwise to blame on conspiracy, what you can blame on
ineptitude instead. Officiating in most major sports is taking a beating, often
for very good reason.

On a personal level, I want no part of LA, NY, or Philly in the Series. We will
see!

Trent King

It's gotta be tough going through life as a conspiracy theorist.

1985 NBA Draft

...and possibly the 2023 NHL draft


probably more instances but these were a few that pretty sure the League wanted

Ewing in NY not Indiana
Connor Beddard in Chicago not Anaheim

"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by simple incompetence."

;)

I tend not to believe in the conspiracy theory. Not only would there have to be some directive from baseball, but individual umpires -- whose entire professional lives are premised on neutrality -- would have to go along.

2002 Western Conference Finals (NBA). Not a fan of either team but that was some BS

Cleveland "Indians" better win Games 3 & 4 or Detroit is moving on.

If it goes to Game 5, Detroit has Skubal going on normal rest, and Cleveland can't touch him.

Has an official never been bought before? is it unfathomable?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGioKeUFDEM

If I was a Pro ump and no idea what they make but let's say they make 200K a year, just a guess, here's 10 million. I'm taking the 10 mil. Now everyone can chime and claim my integrety is worth more than.....blah blah blah.

I'm taking the 10 mil.

But quite possible umps are on the up and up but the replay official who no one sees makes some big game changing calls, so pretty sure it's at least there (as we've seen 2 big calls go against the Padres and Royals, on replay alone).

Let's watch the games and see. Keep an eye on the close calls.

...and this terrible strike 3 call on Witt with a 3-2 count in the 9th

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwZ8fI8T4Kc

at the 15:00 mark. either a brutal call by the ump or some funny business.

That catcher lifts his mitt a good foot up. If it's a strike the catcher just holds his mitt in place.

CORRECT:

"the 2002 NBA playoffs were widely criticized for favoring the Los Angeles Lakers, especially in Game 6. Years later, disgraced referee Tim Donaghy claimed that the Game 6 officiating crew was instructed by the NBA's front office to fix the game."

Bad call for sure, but I would bet if you reviewed the entire game you'd find some bad calls the other direction.

Game outcomes are most certainly influenced by money, directly and indirectly.

+1

Easy to say, but where then are the whistleblowers? There would be fame, notoriety and big money for anyone with evidence to expose such corruption.

:confused:

This is not a one off situation. Point shaving is rampant. When there are many millions involved the money will find a way to make things happen and (usually) not get caught.

https://www.deseret.com/sports/2022/...n-documentary/

After the 1st game my dad, a Yankees fan, suspected from the way the calls went that MLB wanted the Yankees to win. After watching part of tonight's game, he changed his mind; a number of bad strike calls went against the Yankees.

In my opinion, the potential risk for MLB from trying to force a big brand WS is much greater than its potential reward. MLB would make a little extra money if they were successful - but their credibility would take a huge hit if they were found out.

Repeat of the 1984 World Series , Tigers vs Padres with the Tigers winning again. This is my hope.

I like the way you think!

I do think the National League is much better than the AL this year, though. These are not your father's Padres!

I also think whoever comes out of the National League has got to be the favorite……. but as we well know in this sport….anything can happen. Favorites seem to win much less often in baseball as opposed to others.

"College football’s best team wins the title more often than the NFL’s despite having the best regular season record at the same rate. The MLB’s best team, on the other hand, wins the title less often than expected given their regular season performance. This is due to the length of their regular season—162 games—almost twice as many as any other sport—meaning the actual best team more frequently is the best regular season team."

"Looking at the title winning chances for the best teams, college basketball is the most chaotic, while the NBA is the best at unearthing the truly best team. This is unsurprising when comparing the postseason formats for all sports: the NBA, NHL, and MLB are the only ones to use series in every round of the postseason, usually 7-game series. This tends to balance out the randomness, giving the better teams the opportunity to recover from an off day. In practice, this makes the NHL and MLB basically identical to the NFL, where each game has less randomness, but where the playoffs are single elimination. The NBA has less randomness on the game level AND 7-game series throughout the playoffs, leading to a more accurate and less chaotic result."

In the spirit of the times, we prefer the term "Conspiracy Witness".

The World Series last year was the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Did MLB decide not to fix things last year?

Of all the inane storylines perpetuated on Twitter and the like, this is has to be the most annoying. Feels like something a kid in elementary school would come up with.

I don't know how often a game is fixed so the outcome will be 8-0.

The Ohtani show was not involved in last years Playoffs and we all know the Yankees can't beat the Astros in the Postseason so that was never gonna happen.

It doesn't happen all the time, but like the Chiefs going all the way last year, and the WS being the Yankees/Dodgers this year some things are just easy to sniff out.

1919 WS only 3 of the 8 games were fixed....and that was players, not the league. This is the league and money talking, it's much more subtle and you don't need to alter all the games just one (game 1 Royals/yankees) or 2 does the trick.

How much more of the world watches when T Swift's following or Ohtani's following are involved.

Well lets just look at that.

115 million watched the Chiefs Eagles Super Bowl the previous year.
Now enter Swiftymania
An additional 10 million viewers watched Chiefs 49ers Super Bowl.

If you are selling a product and you will get 10 million additional buyers of that product. You just made a shit ton of money.

From what I understand Kelce is from Cleveland and he was at the game with Swift because he was there to see the Guardians while he happened to be in New York during his bye week. Though it is possible MLB had the Chiefs bye week in mind when they scheduled the Yankees to play Cleveland in April.

Not sure what that has to do with the price of tea in China, but okaaaay.

I mean to say that Swift's attendance at the game wasn't because the Yankees are in the playoffs but because Cleveland is.

Who cares about her attending a Yankees game? I missed it. Was it a big deal or something?

She's not tied to baseball like she is to Kelce, the Chiefs, and football.

You are missing the point. Focus.

You brought up Swift twice in your explanation for why MLB would push the Yankees and Dodgers. But if MLB wants Swift at more games, then it seems like they'd push Cleveland, by that logic.

I think his point was that the NFL pushed the Chiefs because of Swift and her Swifties, not that she explained Yankees vs. Dodgers.

I guess it was just a coincidence she attended a Yankee playoff game then. I thought there was some kind of bridge being built between her appearing at the Super Bowl and a possible appearance at the World Series.

I don't think so, at least from what I read.

My sniffer must be off. Or maybe I smelt something else.

For the long term growth of MLB as an industry, I could make a compelling argument that a Diamondback Rangers WS does more to grow the game long term than another Dodger - Yankees WS. Would it get the TV ratings? No, but looking at the long term health of the game, I think they need more teams in the mix, not less.

The Dodgers had the best record in the NL (and best record in baseball) while the Yankees had the best AL record ( and 3rd best record in baseball). I don't want to see either team win, but maybe the fact that they're both pretty good teams has more to do with the results than some big conspiracy.

Remember 50,000 tweets about how the NFL wants Brady in the Super Bowl . . . wants Mahomes in the Super Bowl . . . calls are fixed. . . . refs are on the take . . . all really tiresome and juvenile.

Umpires and refs can barely make basic calls right. But somehow they are going to briefed on who is "supposed to win" and guide their calls accordingly. Really a sign of the times and how silly much of the discourse in this country has gotten on basically every subject.

Personally I think it's reductive to say that last year's Super Bowl was the most watched Super Bowl solely because Taylor Swift was there. The game was accessible across more platforms than ever before, which I would think played a part in people being able to watch it.

At the same time, don't underestimate her unsurpassed popularity and influence over her followers.

Apparently, Cleveland's closer is in on it with MLB. He just gave up back-to-back home runs to Judge and Stanton to give the Yankees the lead in the 8th inning of game 3.

Yep. He got the memo. Obviously grooved both pitches.

Sold it too with that challenge.

Thank you

The Guardians didn't get the memo after all. What a comeback. Playoff baseball is the best.

What a comeback?

Eh Packman?

I hope you New Yorkers study up on a little something called the Heimlich Maneuver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8U-EJmbN3U

If I’m following you this was planned so that MLB can broadcast more games in the series. But why would anyone worry if it’s fixed?

The last time the 2 best record teams in each league met in the WS was 2013.

So you can't always say the 2 best will meet each other, however with a little help from MLB (taking a play out of that crook Goodell's playbook) still pretty sure it will happen this year, no matter how hard the Yankees try and choke it away.

MLB tipped it's hand when they had a Postseason commercial featuring ONLY Judge and Ohtani, they aired that too soon (in the first round). Only the smart people (like me) caught that.

But for now let's just enjoy....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHvZFUaptSs

It's unfortunate but not surprising that the conspiracy nutballs will also be spouting ridiculous theories about sports. To them everything is conspiracy. They need a mental health check.

I don't get the point. The two most popular players heading into the playoffs, why not feature them in a commercial?

I don't recall seeing any commercials the past 10-20 years only showing 2 players when talking about the postseason. You have all these teams in the post season and you show only 2 players.

Why not show Bryce Harper, he's at least as popular as Judge and Ohtani, if not moreso.

It was just a small piece of the puzzle. Then came the terrible calls in the Yankees first playoff game all going their way, the next piece of the puzzle, very bad call favoring the Dodgers in their first game, yet another piece..

We'll see if either of the 2 remaining Series get close enough and then we'll see the calls.

Most of you are acting like I said EVERY call is going to go for the Dodgers and Yankees, never said that. Let's just keep on watching, and for those who took my advice when I said bet the Dodgers and Yankees to make it to the Series you're welcome, enjoy your extra cash, MLB will be doing the same.

Judge and Ohtani are the respective megastars of each league this season. Nobody else was close. This isn't hard to understand, it doesn't signal a conspiracy.

The problem with what you’re saying is that if the Yankees win you’ll claim you knew it all along and if the Yankees lose you’ll talk about how they choked. Both things can’t be true.

Also the ad you’re talking about came out after the Phillies had been eliminated. That might be why Harper wasn’t featured. Or there could be something larger at play.

It sounds like Moe is the kind of person who believes we never landed on the moon and that the 2020 election was stolen.

Wrong. But nice try bringing in things that have nothing to do with baseball. Stick to baseball genius.

And Packs nice try stating the the Judge Ohtani commercial was when the Phillies were out of the Playoffs, wrong!.......look at the date I started this thread, and I mentioned the commercial, were the Phillies in the Playoffs?.....yes there were.

Did anyone notice the brutal call in the bottom of the 9th to the Indians lead off hitter with the 3-2 count that resulted in strike 3 rather than ball 4?

I'm not saying I'm just saying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ6F...ssports.com%2F

This MLB commercial simultaneously predicts every team to win, just to cover all bases and all scenarios. I thought you might enjoy it.

Yes, that 3-2 call confirms you're right. All season long, no other call like that has been made.

I'm glad Darling and Francouer called it out as well.

Just a terrible call at once again the 9th inning of the Yankees opponent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd-NnXofNOI

Go to the 14:15 mark (if it doesn't start there).

Sure, should have been a ball, but it was about 1 inch off the corner and people somehow always forget the umpires don't have a convenient perfectly drawn box on their TV screen when they're calling balls and strikes.

Judge gets about 5 of those calls per game against him. :)

Just go to robot umps behind the plate, and this all goes away........as long as the same people complaining about these types of calls, aren't also up on their high horse about the "sanctity of the game" if it ever becomes a reality.

I think baseball is easily the cleanest of the various major sports as far as officiating goes.

It's just a simpler game to call, and instant replay and added pressure on the umps to have more consistent strike zones in the last 15-20 years or so, have made the officiating more accurate then it used to be.

There's still crappy umps behind the plate from time to time, but I think people forget that it used to be way worse and more arbitrary from crew to crew back in the "good old days".

NFL Football is such a bang-bang sport and lots of the penalty calls are so subjective, it's enough to want to rip your hair out several times a game, even on a well called game, while certain star QB's do seem to get preferential treatment on certain types of calls.

NBA Basketball seems the most suss to me. I don't think games are fixed for teams per se, but I've seen enough playoff series through the years that you would have a hard time convincing me the NBA wasn't engaged in trying to extend series to as many games as possible in order to maximize ticket and TV revenue. The swings in momentum from the standpoint of the refs calls from game to game would just seem wild at times. That said, I don't think it happens as much now, as it did 5 or more years ago.

I haven't watched NHL hockey religiously in a very long time, for me to give a great opinion on how it's called nowadays. Just a simple interference penalty at an inopportune time could swing the momentum of a game, but I don't remember being too pissed off at unfair officiating when I was following hockey more intensely (just at how much the Whalers usually sucked). Maybe somebody else can chime in on this.

1 for 1

Dodgers should make it 2 for 2 tomorrow.

Who was favored to win the AL?

Most of the close calls went to the Guardians this game. The Yankees won this one by pure slugging.

Speaking of which - as a young Yankees fan I am so excited!!!!! I know most of you folks have seen the Yankees in the WS countless times and are sick of it, but the Yankee haven't been in the WS since I was a toddler. I'm absolutely psyched.

The team MLB hired to write the ALCS deserves an Emmy. They could have played it cool but instead they penned in a 10th inning home run to send the Yankees to the series. I just hope the Yankees know none of it is real or they might do something foolish like try to re-sign Soto or pick up Luke Weaver’s option.

I don’t think it’s crazy to think that umpires tend to have a slight bias to long-established star pitchers on great teams and referees tend to have a slight bias to the better teams.

That's quite the generalization.

Do you even watch football to comment? Asking because your posts don’t slow down during NFL games.

Completely agree, this game was 100% good. Soto is a beast.

hahahahahahaha!!!!!


Take 5 Pete

Well I went 2 for 2. "Shocker" That's called batting a thousand in baseball.

Good job and congrats to MLB.......um.......I mean the Dodgers.

Some definite funny business propelled the Yankees forward in both rounds. I've mentioned all that previously, no need to re-hash.

I didn't watch much of the Dodgers vs the Mets (I don't get FS1), listened to some of it on the radio, but beating the Mets 9-0, 8-0, 10-2 and 10-4 they didn't needed any help, Series was never in doubt. That helps.

One call I recall in Game 1 vs Padres was questionable, but didn't watch the rest of that Series either. Mostly 'cuz I knew the Dodgers would advance all the way. They would have gotten help had they needed it, no doubt.

I do know EVERY "expert" on ESPN.com picked the Padres over the Dodgers, I believe it was 8 different "experts", not sure why NONE dissented. To me it was obvious Dodgers were advancing, MLB didn't want the Padres, they wanted the Dodgers.

Just surprised I was the only one who saw this.

Yes, the fix was in, "no doubt." And you alone of the entire world saw it, imagine that! LOL.

Wow!! We're having a Dodgers/Yankees WS, people !! That's freaking insane !! The last time they met in the WS was back in ... 1981 ??? Shit! I wasn't even around then!! :eek:

I watched many Dodgers games and they're hitting HR after HR after HR. Their pitching has been nearly perfect as well. What does any of this have to do with the MLB or the officiating?? :confused: This is an elite team, period.

Imagine what will happen next season when Ohtani starts pitching again??

So a team that bores me against a team I despise....

Go Dodgers!

;)

No one dissented because three weeks ago the Dodgers pitching staff was the biggest question mark in the entire playoff picture and the Padres were white hot. Down 2-1 to the Padres the talk of baseball was if Dave Roberts was on the hot seat. What he did in the next 8 games is arguably one of the best managerial jobs in years going 6-2 and winning two series while navigating 4 bullpen games. The starters they do have were giant question marks and struggled down the regular season stretch. If you just look at the payroll, then yeah they were clear favorites. If you watched the last 4-5 weeks of the season then Philly, San Diego, and the Mets were all playing much better baseball in the National League.




I'd argue that the Dodger's IL alone would be (if healthy) the best pitching staff since Atlanta's Heyday.

SP - Shohei Ohtani
SP - Tyler Glasnow
SP - Clayton Kershaw
SP - Tony Gonsolin
SP - River Ryan
SP - Dustin May
SP - Gavin Stone
RP- Joe Kelly
RP - Brusdar Gatarol
RP - Alex Vesia
RP - Michael Grove
RP - Kyle Hurt

The two best teams won as they should. No conspiracy, but some people see conspiracy everywhere.

Once again the bulk of a World Series bound Yankees roster is made up of savvy trades and home grown players:

Traded for:
Soto, Chisholm, Clay Holmes, Mark Leiter Jr.

Claimed off Waivers / Traded for Cash:
LUKE WEAVER, Tim Hill, Jake Cousins

Have Only Played for the Yankees:
Judge, Volpe, Wells, Schmidt, Gil, Gleyber among others