OT: Sox Fire Cora

[A Defiant Goose]

What could be worse in baseball than a batter secretly knowing exactly what pitch is coming?

A racist bat

 

[1960Pats]

Tunes is an avowed Boreball hater...

Boreball fever. Catch it!

 

[Kontradiction]

He should be out of baseball altogether. Maybe he can get a job as a manual laborer of some kind. They love to cheat people.

 

[borg]

“Great guy”
“Good man”
Etc
Etc
Etc
For 48 hours I’ve listened or read such plaudits from local and national media so willing to carry water for Cora, a con man extraordinaire who set up sophisticated cheating operations inside two organizations.
Play slapdick with the media, work within their ranks...... get as much of a free pass as possible from the narrative creators.... ya know....for a guy who has brought down 2 franchises single handedly.
Good guy

Great leader.... getting entire batting orders to be eager accomplices. Enlisting video staff and just about every person who belongs in the dugout to perpetuate this fraud on a daily basis......an every pitch basis.

Fraud....”I want my batters more aggressive at the plate”
“We’re going swing at first pitches”
MVP worthy 2018 season for Betts and Martinez, Henry and Co. must have been lapping up Cora’s secret sauce... until baseball starting looking behind the curtains of the houses Cora lived in.

Fraud, con man

Pete Rose bet on a game
Alex Cora was a systemic cheater who corrupted every pitch and the advantage gained certainly impacted outcomes during their “record season”

I’d ban the guy for life without hesitation and I certainly wouldn’t give players a pass.

 

[aluminum seats]

No great loss, they’ll find another manager. Hope they can keep Mookie though.

Baseball’s a great game, but to each his own. Weird how some use not liking it as a personality trait, but whatever.

I love pretty much all sports, thought most did...although the NBA deciding they like the three-point competition so much they’d make it the whole game has ruined that league a little.

 

[1960Pats]

Some questions.

Can Cora receive a pardon from the POTUS?
Has Henry called Cora a schmuck yet?
Will the team's newspaper cover the scandal?
What did Henry know and when did he know it ?

 

[1960Pats]

No great loss, they’ll find another manager. Hope they can keep Mookie though.

Baseball’s a great game, but to each his own. Weird how some use not liking it as a personality trait, but whatever.

I love pretty much all sports, thought most did...although the NBA deciding they like the three-point competition so much they’d make it the whole game has ruined that league a little.

How does someone use not liking Boreball as a personality trait?

As for the 3-pointer in the NBA, I think Red had it right. It should be worth more to get it closer to the basket. I'm getting more used to the current NBA though.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Knowing what pitch is coming is HUGE.

Then why does baseball have no problem at all with stealing signs in general?

If they had stolen the signs the “old-fashioned way” and relayed them to the batter so he knew what pitch was coming no one would have cared. They just came up with a scheme that entailed less effort.

And if it’s really so important, why don’t teams change up the signs encoding so that stealing signs would be mostly useless? It wouldn’t be hard to do that.

 

[BTTA]

He should be out of baseball altogether. Maybe he can get a job as a manual laborer of some kind. They love to cheat people.

WTF, Kontra? This is making me laugh at the breakfast table. That's about 50% of the human race. You have a bad recent experience?

The contractors and manual laborers I hire to work around the house are some of the more honest people I encounter in any given day.

 

[Kontradiction]

WTF, Kontra? This is making me laugh at the breakfast table. That's about 50% of the human race. You have a bad recent experience?

The contractors and manual laborers I hire to work around the house are some of the more honest people I encounter in any given day.

PM me their contact info please.

 

[1960Pats]

Then why does baseball have no problem at all with stealing signs in general?

If they had stolen the signs the “old-fashioned way” and relayed them to the batter so he knew what pitch was coming no one would have cared. They just came up with a scheme that entailed less effort.

And if it’s really so important, why don’t teams change up the signs encoding so that stealing signs would be mostly useless? It wouldn’t be hard to do that.

I have no idea why Boreball doesn't care to fix their problems. Do you?

 

[BTTA]

Is anybody else just gobsmacked by the trash-can banging? Seriously? They are that brazen about it? Nobody picked up on it? No broadcaster said "What's that banging noise coming from around the Astros' dugout?" No fan seated in the vicinity complained about it? No one in the media noticed? No opposing pitcher was irritated that their concentration was being interrupted?

Nobody in Hollywood would have the guts to write such a thing into a script, unless it was a satire/comedy about baseball.

 

[Sicilian]

Ah yes... the annual baseball thread that's nothing but people feeling the need to remind us how much they don't like baseball.

 

[Froob]

Is anybody else just gobsmacked by the trash-can banging? Seriously? They are that brazen about it? Nobody picked up on it? No broadcaster said "What's that banging noise coming from around the Astros' dugout?" No fan seated in the vicinity complained about it? No one in the media noticed? No opposing pitcher was irritated that their concentration was being interrupted?

Nobody in Hollywood would have the guts to write such a thing into a script, unless it was a satire/comedy about baseball.

When the Astros come to town, teams should play “I don’t wanna work, I just want to bang on these drums all day!”

 

[RobertWeathers]

When the Astros come to town, teams should play “I don’t wanna work, I just want to bang on these drums all day!”

Or, "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood.

 

[LightSkinSmurf]

Damn, 2 of the last 3 WS champs got caught cheating. Now we just need the nationals to have a scandal to make it 3 out of 3.

 

[Hammer of Thor]

Yeah...I tend to put the burden of the “cheating” problem on the league that doesn’t tighten the rules enough or use technology enough to prevent it. Like in this case, MLB could have easily hired their own representative to be in a dugout or centerfield, knowing these accusations. Or pitcher and catcher could easily use some other type of better communication technology to prevent this.

If there are signs to steal, teams will try to steal them. The teams that are the smartest and most successful will get punished and scapegoated. Teams that suck or aren’t as good at gamesmanship will skate by.

I agree...there are really only two types of actual cheaters in sports:

1. Juicers...guys that use masking agents and purposely circumvent drug tests. That is just another level of “getting an edge” and is an uneven playing field. Lance Armstrong is a good example with the lengths he went to hide the doping.

2. Guys who LOSE on purpose for gambling, getting paid off, etc. They should get a lifetime ban.

Everyone else is just trying to gain access to valuable information or trying to get an edge in winning a game. As they push/break rules, the league should respond by adjusting its protocols rather than crying and punishing. We know that in a competitive world like this, you really are likely at a disadvantage if you’re not trying to gain every possible edge. Holding, offsides, pass interference...these are also “against the rules” and have penalties. All rules violations have penalties. Teams and individuals take risks when they break rules. But again, they are trying to win, not throwing games or point shaving. I don’t know if I’d use the word “cheating.” Maybe I’m in the minority...I just think at that level you should expect that everyone will do anything to win and prepare to combat it. It’s part of the game.

You hit the nail on the head as to my view. I hate when leagues use “integrity of the game” comments on this type of stuff. That’s not what I think of when I think of integrity. I think it’s the league’s job to ensure this type of shenanigan isn’t going on, but I understand the players’ motivations behind it. “Integrity” to me relates to ensuring that the games aren’t rigged. These actions aren’t rigging the game, they’re trying to win at all costs.

I follow Chris Rock’s line of thinking for these types of events — I’m not saying I agree, but I understand.

MLB and all sports need to lay down appropriate penalties for breaking the rules. The question is given what actually is legal and what happened here, is this appropriate or is it an over-the-top respect my authoritah response? To your point, in-game violations have appropriate in-game penalties, could this type of thing be treated the same way? The pitcher trying to trick the runner into thinking he’s throwing home instead of throwing to 1st carries a penalty of one base. What’s a comparable penalty figuring out pitch selection electronically if it was discovered during a game? Batter is automatically out?

And MLB needs to reassess this rule in general - why is one form of sign stealing ok and not another? If we do think this current set up is appropriate because it makes sign stealing too easy (we’ll reward brains, not simplicity), is there something we can do with the sign giving process that can actively prevent this? There’s nothing stopping MLB from allowing managers, pitchers and catchers from having an earpiece to relay the pitch selection, and having the rules be no use of the same frequency for each team and have a league rep watching over things during a game. Same thing for hitters and batters regarding signs from the 3rd base coach.

 

[XLIX]

Pete Rose bet on a game

Pete Rose systematically bet on MLB games, including games within which he was participating (both as a player and as a manager), for years.

That’s simply a violation of the cardinal rule of sports (especially baseball, given its history). He deserved what he got.

 

[Tunescribe]

Tunes is an avowed Boreball hater...

Not the game itself really, only the perversion that is MLB.

 

[archstanton543]

Is anybody else just gobsmacked by the trash-can banging? Seriously? They are that brazen about it? Nobody picked up on it? No broadcaster said "What's that banging noise coming from around the Astros' dugout?" No fan seated in the vicinity complained about it? No one in the media noticed? No opposing pitcher was irritated that their concentration was being interrupted?

Nobody in Hollywood would have the guts to write such a thing into a script, unless it was a satire/comedy about baseball.

Teams did complain for years..during games even. That’s why MLB eventually launched in an investigation into the sign stealing.