Quote:
Originally Posted by G1911
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.
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G1911,
Wasn't dissing you. And agree the comparison of cheating to win and cheating to lose a game is not a pure apples to apples comparison, but regardless of the severity of the infraction, rules are rules, and enforcing some rules retroactively while not enforcing others is just wrong.
And from a philosophical standpoint, does it really matter that much what the cheating was supposed to accomplish, to win or to lose? During the Black Sox scandal, the people who were White Sox fans and who bet on the Sox to win were probably pissed as hell when they found out their team may have thrown the world Series on purpose. But guess what, the Cincinnati Reds fans and those who bet against the White Sox, along with anyone else who hated the White Sox for whatever reasons, were probably happier than pigs in mud that they ended up winning. Now lets fast forward to the Astros a couple years ago and their cheating scandal. They actually involved more than just the players on the team in what they did. They had other people in the organization at different levels as part of this concerted effort also, so it went much deeper than the issues with the White Sox organization back in 1919. So when the Astros ended up winning, their fans and anybody who bet on them were happy. But, all the other teams, and all their fans and all those others that were betting against the Astros, were all very unhappy. So in both instances you end up with some people being happy, and some being very unhappy.
But in the case where the White Sox played to supposedly lose, it was mostly just their fans that were unhappy. Think about it, most professional sports fans are concerned with winning, not necessarily how they do it. Oh they may wish the other team tried their best to win, but in the end they're just happy to have won and tough sh#t if the other team's players were stupid enough to throw the game in their team's favor. So you end up with fans from one team being very unhappy, fans from another team being very happy, and most of the fans from the rest of the teams not being overly thrilled, but mostly disinterested because it didn't directly involve their team.
Now in the case of the Astros, obviously the majority of their fans are very happy they won. "If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'", isn't that the old adage? But now you have not just the team they beat in the World Series, but also the teams they beat in the rest of the playoffs, as well as the teams they played and beat throughout the entire season, and all of those team's respective fans, who are pissed as hell at the Astros for what they did. So when I add up my scorecard, I actually think there would be more people upset and pissed off because of what the Astros did than what the White Sox did.
Personally, I think that Altuve and the rest of the group that were all found to be involved in this cheating scandal should have been immediately and permanently banned from baseball. You mentioned about some things that common sense should tell you is wrong and that players should be able to be banned for. Well I think what the Astros did should be one of those things. But guess what, the players basically got slaps on the wrist and immunity for agreeing to finally cooperate with the investigation. Meanwhile, managers, coaches and employees of the organization who knew or were directly involved in the cheating took the brunt of the punishment and lost jobs and faced suspensions. And the team lost some draft picks and paid a $5MM fine. That was basically it.
What the Astros did was far worse for baseball and negatively affected more of the people involved in baseball than what the White Sox did. Yet the players back then took the brunt of the blame and paid for it, while the players of today had virtually nothing done to them.
The reason I originally brought up the greenies and amphetamine use as a possible argument was because of the specifics of the rules involving PEDs and steroid uses and how there is an actual rule that says if you do this you are permanently banned. I may be wrong, but for what the Astros did I believe the rules put it at the discretion of the Commissioner to decide their punishment, and there is no specific automatic "permanent suspension" clause in that part of the rules.
So I still make my claim that either of these, the greenies or the Astros cheating, should be retroactively used to permanently ban involved parties that were known to break the rules, the same way they retroactively treated the Black Sox players. And if not, it just shows the total hypocrisy on the part of MLB. I even read or heard one place that Landis had said he was going to suspend the Black Sox players involved in the 1919 scandal, and if they ended up being found innocent in their criminal trial he would then reinstate them. Funny, at least Manfred kept his word to the players. Oh wait, had he not, he would have had the MLBPA up his arse. Too bad the players back in 1919 didn't have a union to help and protect them against the owners.
I understand the problem with my argument of going back on all the greenie users was that pretty much everyone in baseball was using the greenies, and so no one really cared. But back then in 1919, it wasn't like the Black Sox were the first ever players to get involved with gamblers and throw games either. They just became the sacrificial lambs so baseball owners could keep making their money, which is really all they truly cared about. I'm not saying the Black Sox were all clean and not deserving of punishment, but there are valid arguments that Weaver and Jackson were screwed, and that Comiskey was so involved in all of this that of all the people banned, he should have been the first. Instead, his fellow owners protected him and I don't think he really suffered any punishment for involvement in all this. Makes you wonder if the MLB owners didn't all have enough "dirt" on each other that they dared not throw one of their own under the bus, so instead take it on the players involved so as to make fans happy, and teach a lesson to the rest of the players to shut up and do as they were told. Even Rule #21 Landis eventually put on the books, in 1927 I think, involving Misconduct and Gambling was written in such a way as to explicitly not implicate Comiskey at all for his part of the 1919 scandal. But it does make sure to cover both Weaver and Jackson, at least for what they were alleged to have done. In the end, nothing has changed. It was all about the money back then, and it is all about the money today.