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