Quote:
Originally Posted by BobC
But if he did not take money or do anything to actually throw a game then why, there was no such rule in place when that happened? He was retroactively banned by Landis, who was basically paid off by the owner's to be their hit man. In fact, there was actually no law on the books that made throwing a baseball game a criminal activity at the time either. The Black Sox trial was for alledgedly cheating others out of money they would have gotten had they won the series. If I remember correctly, I believe White Sox teammate Shano Collins was listed as the injured party in the trial, or one of them at least.
And if you are going to retroactively ban someone for one rule, then shouldn't the same be true for all rules? In which case, shouldn't the rule be retroactively applied to anyone taking amphetamines before they were banned then? And since it is basically a known fact that virtually all ballplayers back in the 50's and 60's were taking, or at least tried, greenies/amphetamines, there is an even more compelling case for most of the HOFers from back then to be banned from baseball permanently as well. I believe the current rule is three strikes for PEDs and you're out forever, right?
And before even one of you jumps on here to say you can't prove anyone did greenies because they didn't test for amphetamines back then, go look up all the stories and admissions. I believe Mays even admitted to going to his doctor for a prescription to help him get through the season, and conveniently said he didn't know what was in the pills he got though so he could always feign ignorance of knowingly taking amphtamines. I believe you could find enough evidence and support to permanently ban quite a few HOFers if that rule against PEDs were retroactively applied, like the gambling rule apparently was against Weaver.
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I didn’t say he should be banned, I said that the reason cited for his banning was factually wrong. He was banned for guilty knowledge and effectively helping cover it up, not throwing the series himself.
Whether he should have been for that is a legitimate question. I think that a player can reasonably be banned for doing something that common sense should tell you is very wrong, even if there is not a specific rule. For example, I don’t believe MLB has a rule specifically saying you can be banned for assault with a deadly weapon or attempted homicide, but I think Juan Marichal could reasonably have been banned for life for trying to smash John Roseboro’s head open with a bat.
Likening covering up the biggest scandal in sports history that ruined public trust in the game to every player that has taken a greenie, amphetamine, or sought an unfair advantage (which is probably almost every player in history) is not reasonable. The obvious difference here is that seeking an unfair competitive advantage is a different kind of bad thing from covering up the throwing of the World Series, trying to win vs. covering up trying to lose. Weaver can be defended on the reasonable ground that the line should be drawn at direct participation and not guilty knowledge. This is a better argument, and one I don’t necessarily disagree with.