NREC34
Footballguy
Good lord man. You need to listen to NY talk radio. All you gotta do is beat them a few times and there’s lots of caring and hating.
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2020 MLB Spring Training (7 Viewers)
- Thread starter TheIronSheik
- Start date
cobalt_27
Footballguy
If it were my team, I’d disown them. Wouldn’t matter how long I supported them, memories, all that is irrelevant. If the organization I rooted for engaged in this level of cheating, I’d no longer root for them, full stop. Can’t really wrap my head around how someone resolves the cognitive dissonance to keep rooting for them, in fact. It’s like an evil super power.
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bigmarc27
Footballguy
Actually this is a good call, we all know New York loves Boston. They’re probably hoping nothing comes out against the Sox so they can keep hating on their true rival.
bigmarc27
Footballguy
I don’t think I would, but I’d wipe those seasons and be content in knowing that what I’m seeing moving forward was earned. I’d prob push for a complete ownership change too like what happened with the Clippers.
NREC34
Footballguy
I agree. It’s odd that they aren’t talking about Boston very much. It’s almost all concentrated in one place.
shadyridr
Footballguy
You definitely are. There was friggin video after their own player accused them. Where is the Red Sox video from jomboy? Hmmmm
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cobalt_27
Footballguy
Strangely, it would help me some if MLB vacated the WS. I couldn’t bask in the glow of the team I root for being honored for something that wasn’t earned.
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Capella
Footballguy
Right. About this situation. Not because they are Houston. Most opposing fans would care if a team cheated this much. It would be significantly louder if it was Boston.
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NREC34
Footballguy
shadyridr
Footballguy
Smack Tripper
Footballguy
The Astros denied it when accused
we have the testimony of multiple independent baseball executives and managers than manfred ignored these allegations when brought through quieter channels, which forced fiers hand.
why should I believe what manfred or the stros say on any of this? THAT is an act of faith
Tom Hagen
Footballguy
Also, after how the Astros treated Stephanie Apstein I have absolutely no faith in their denials about anything.
Smack Tripper
Footballguy
Also what Correa ignores in altuve’s tainted mvp season is that even if he minimally cheated, he benefited from the rest of the lineup cheating by having better hitting opportunities so that midget can pound salt
NREC34
Footballguy
Why doesn’t Fiers apologize like everyone else then.
Why didn’t Fiers try to stop it as it was happening?
Why does Fiers like teenage girls?
yeah Fiers is a stand up guy who had his hand forced
Rodrigo Duterte
Footballguy
DJackson10
Footballguy
Just gonna give my two cents on this whole Astros thing. If anyone from players, media, coaches, people in MLB, etc are upset with what the ASTROS did I hope to god you were just as upset when the whole Steriod Scandal happened in MLB. If not you are a hypocrite and anything you say shouldn't be taken seriously. This is another black eye for baseball and Manfred like Selig went soft on punishment for the situation. Beltran should get a life time ban as he was also in the PED scandal as well. I'm still confused on Hinch. Sounds like he wanted no part of it and destroyed stuff but never told people to stop it. It sounds like he was either afraid of going against his employer or something else. Crane should lose the team and the team should be MLB owned. Cora deserves a hefty suspension and any and all players should be banned for the entire upcoming season no matter what. The Astros should have a ban on signing FAs and post season play. I hate taking away awards and such though. I'm cool with individual awards but not cool with taking titles away. We can just put an asterisk next to them like many of us do with the Patriots titles anyway.
I find it ironic how some of the same media members or former players who defended the Steroid Scandal are losing their #### over this. You're a hypocrite. Why are performance enhancers ok by your standards but what the Astros did blasphemy against the sport? Both put a black eye n the sport. I felt robbed and honestly had I been older and spending money on MLB during the steroid era I'd be looking into suing MLB for false advertisement of players and product as it was not a natural occurrence. I was paying for something that was advanced by drugs not skill. I literally lost so much respect for players I liked from ARod (My #2 to Ken Griffey at the time) to Clemens, to Sosa and Bonds, Palmerio etc. This is a horrible look for the game and Manfred simple gave them a slap on the wrist. I'm going out on a limb and going to say like Selig the journalist and entire league knew about the PED scandal there are important people in MLB who knew about the Astros cheating and hoping to keep it under wraps similar to Selig and the PEDs and The NBA with Stern sweeping the better allegations on Donaghey and NBA refs was tried to kept quite for yrs. My best guess is after all the issues in Houston with the storms and what the city went through MLB didn't want to put more strain on the city nor MLB with possible cheating allegations by a team that was bringing so many in the Houston community together. I'm with guys like Trevor Bauer and Cody Bellinger here. Lost a lot of respect for those players and the organization and the commissioner is a ####### clown to the league.
Finally all I got to say to every player or team pissed off. Time to stop acting like a bunch of ####### and do something about it. Old School baseball some chin music and eat dirt to the batter and some dirty slides. I'll just say if anything unfortunate happens to an Astros player don't think anyone will have sympathy for them. They brought it on themselves and the organization. They disgraced the city, the fans, the sport and the name of the organization. Owners all the way down to everyone involved.
I find it ironic how some of the same media members or former players who defended the Steroid Scandal are losing their #### over this. You're a hypocrite. Why are performance enhancers ok by your standards but what the Astros did blasphemy against the sport? Both put a black eye n the sport. I felt robbed and honestly had I been older and spending money on MLB during the steroid era I'd be looking into suing MLB for false advertisement of players and product as it was not a natural occurrence. I was paying for something that was advanced by drugs not skill. I literally lost so much respect for players I liked from ARod (My #2 to Ken Griffey at the time) to Clemens, to Sosa and Bonds, Palmerio etc. This is a horrible look for the game and Manfred simple gave them a slap on the wrist. I'm going out on a limb and going to say like Selig the journalist and entire league knew about the PED scandal there are important people in MLB who knew about the Astros cheating and hoping to keep it under wraps similar to Selig and the PEDs and The NBA with Stern sweeping the better allegations on Donaghey and NBA refs was tried to kept quite for yrs. My best guess is after all the issues in Houston with the storms and what the city went through MLB didn't want to put more strain on the city nor MLB with possible cheating allegations by a team that was bringing so many in the Houston community together. I'm with guys like Trevor Bauer and Cody Bellinger here. Lost a lot of respect for those players and the organization and the commissioner is a ####### clown to the league.
Finally all I got to say to every player or team pissed off. Time to stop acting like a bunch of ####### and do something about it. Old School baseball some chin music and eat dirt to the batter and some dirty slides. I'll just say if anything unfortunate happens to an Astros player don't think anyone will have sympathy for them. They brought it on themselves and the organization. They disgraced the city, the fans, the sport and the name of the organization. Owners all the way down to everyone involved.
DJackson10
Footballguy
Anyone takin that approach especially who works in MLB or in the media and was around during the PED Scandal it's pretty rich when they act holier then thou after what they knew and let go. Everyone from Selig to the coaches, players, the ball boy, umpires, and media and journalists knew multiple and big name players were using Steroids but did nothing till the cat came out of the bag. It was all because of the MLB strike in the 90s and baseball fearing the loss of fans and wanting to gain fans back took a short cut to that success. So any of them coming out now with a holier then thou attidude needs to be held accountable and shown a mirror. Its incredible rich of those people talking about cheating. I'm not saying people should be pissed off. They should be but don't think for one dam minute that some of these guys coming out if they had the opportunity to do what the Astros did wouldn't do it themselves and not think twice about it. Beltran helped because he knew it'd look good on his resume a WS for the Hall. Similar reasons why guys Juiced up.
facook
Footballguy
They aren't now, but they did at the time, didn't they? I thought I remember Kirkjian saying the media has some culpability because they didn't report what was a widely known secret about guys taking steroids back then. Recently John Feinstein seemed to hint at the same in a radio interview I heard with him.
I've been wondering lately: if players or others in the league say it was a widely known fact within the league that teams were cheating in this way (with technology), did baseball writers know as well? And if so, why didn't they report on it?
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
Stealing signs the way they did it clearly gave them an enormous advantage over stealing signs the legal way. The stats clearly back that up and they clearly wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of doing it the way they did it if it didn’t benefit them tremendously.
Stealing signs the way they did it was illegal and it gave them an historic statistical advantage. I’m not sure how anyone can say that it didn’t materially impact the game and give them a huge advantage that was gained by breaking the rules. That’s kind of a big deal.
Rodrigo Duterte
Footballguy
Somebody post the Astros batting stats from '16 to '17. They went from around 16th in 3 categories, to first in all 3. It's hilarious.
According to this study the Astros did not show a big difference in home and away stats in 2017. I haven't seen any specific stats that shows a huge difference in a big enough sample size to be meaningful.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-much-did-the-astros-really-benefit-from-sign-stealing/
bigmarc27
Footballguy
I don’t think it was people looking the other way, it was just tough to prove. It wasn’t like teams were passing out steroids on the plane, the players were buying from trainers or whoever. Kinda like how Tyler Skaggs was getting Oxy from an employee on the side.
These players ended up having to testify in front of Congress, so I don’t really think it was swept under the rug.
facook
Footballguy
No, I didn't mean to imply they swept it under the rug after the accusations came out. More just wondering why the journalists weren't reporting on it earlier, I guess. In both situations.
gump
Footballguy
That would be crazy...like if a pro league existed without a cap. The Stros cheated between the lines...and deserve everything they’ll get.
bigmarc27
Footballguy
He’s just saying all kinds of crazy #### to distract people from his inane arguments. Disregard.
General Malaise
Footballguy
What is a jomboy?
shadyridr
Footballguy
Twitter account of the guy who found all the video evidence of the Astros banging the garbage can.
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
Go read this article by Jayson Stark and Zeno Starris from The Athletic if you have a subscription. The stats are absolutely unprecedented. There’s no way their cheating didn’t have tangible significant benefits.
DJackson10
Footballguy
They all knew when it was going on what was going on and then when it got reported they all acted shocked. The media members aren't doing anyone any favors with the voting. They are just sucking up to fans who finally caught on about them being in on the whole gig. Like I said everyone in MLB knew about and there's writers out there who have said we as journalist knew it was going on. I've seen some journalists write about guys juicing up blatantly right in front of them and no one would say a dam thing. The whole No HoF is just lip service to the fans by them because they know the backlash putting them in would cause.
Like I said they all took the sort way to get the game popular after the strike.
DJackson10
Footballguy
It was for those who knew about it. Selig wasn't gonna do a dam thing about testing until Congress got actively involved in the scandal. Players juiced up right in front of media members and no one said **** about it. Trainers on the teams were selling the stuff like hotcakes. Managers, agents GMs and owners all knew who was doing it. The issue is a lot of those guys were so old school. You know the NFL player who always says whats said in an NFL Locker room stays in an NFL locker room if its not already public type stuff? Thats what it was. They were a big fraternity not gonna rat each other out. Today you got guys making public statements or agents making them and airing locker room dirty laundry in public like nothing. Selig after the news broke about the scandal played dumb tried to sweep it under the rug. Then Congress got involved and he lied his ### off about how they were going to change without congress interference. I use to joke about the MLB testing (Sad thing is it was true) that compared to WWE/F the MLB drug testing was the biggest joke ever. WWF got in trouble for a scandal and changed everything have way better programs today and set up support system for those addicted. Wasn't until congress got involved. I'm going to post an article from ESPN but its mostly on the Victor Conte stuff. However if this was going on with Conte just imagine who else knew and was doing this stuff on their own.
Who knew about the rampant PED scandal in MLB
DJackson10
Footballguy
The writers didn't want to lose their team sources. I did an major report back in school on this. I got to interview one of the old Phillies writers on the whole thing. He said players would shoot up right in front of us. Players knew who was using and if you needed some juice there were players and trainers and team drs who knew who to get it from and how to be discrete about it. News reached Commissioner Selig's office but there was not enough concrete proof to investigate. Players started using as early as 1987 from the link I posted and by 91 MLB knew of the issue and ignored their own rules. When the strike happened baseball lost fans. When McGwire and company started smashing the balls out of the park people came back in droves. MLB didn't want to take that new found love they were getting back again and put it at risk so they just let everyone keep using.
Basically it was a mixture of a lot of reasons
1. for the writers didn't want to lose sources or get blackballed by MLB or other sports media who might try black ball them
2. Owners and MLB wanted to keep the new found interest in the game
3. Baseball had fans excited again
4. People were making a ton of very good $$$$$
5. A lot of egos involved
6. The thing got so out of hand if someone stopped it they would need a full FBI investigation on it.
Point is people saw their new gold mine and didn't want to give that up. I know many here are older than me. I was about 6 or so in the strike shortened year. But Baseball lost a lot of fans then. MLB needed some way to bring them back. MLB when they saw the benefits of Players juicing chose to stay quite
DJackson10
Footballguy
Jayson Stark is a baseball writing legend. Boy do I miss reading his stories covering the Phillies. I just wish he had his chance to be working covering the team when they finally had won the WS. If there was one writer in this city who deserved to cover that former or current employee it was hm.
DJackson10
Footballguy
I'll just say this about college. I think if we had a full independent FBI investigation into the entire NCAA we could shut it all down for so many criminal offenses. Almost every college has skeletons. There's a few Colleges that have their MSU issues and their PSU Sandusky. Schools who cover up players sexually assaulting someone players being paid, players given fake grades and never showing up for class etc etc. Its why when a college does something I just shrug it off at this point. The issue is the NCAA picks and choses when to discipline or investigate. I've said for awhile the minute the statutory limits on the Winston case expire and FSU isn't making the NCAA any football money they'll go after them for covering that up. The NCAA does these things like clock work.
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
Manfred’s defense of his punishments is rather pathetic. He did a pretty great job of cheapening the entire sport with this one:
Good to know that winning a baseball championship is only about winning a piece of metal. For anyone that’s still a baseball fan, the commish just straight up told you that winning an MLB title is essentially meaningless.
Good to know that winning a baseball championship is only about winning a piece of metal. For anyone that’s still a baseball fan, the commish just straight up told you that winning an MLB title is essentially meaningless.
bigmarc27
Footballguy
That was the most tone deaf thing he’s said IMO. It’s the pinnacle of a multi billion dollar organization. That’s the same kind of BS people say when they don’t like sports. “Why give someone a million dollars because they’re good at throwing a ball when you can spend it on X, Y, and Z.” How can the commissioner of baseball not understand not only the history of the sport and how championships are viewed, but also all of the importance these teams bring to their city and fans in regards to dollars and tourism? He whiffed so badly.
TheIronSheik
SUPER ELITE UPPER TIER
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
Who cares about the home run record? It’s just a piece of leather covered cork and twine going over an arbitrary wall.
TheIronSheik
SUPER ELITE UPPER TIER
You should see their stats from '15 to '16. They made a huge jump!
Oh yeah, also they were tanking those years and had just started to get really good.
I gotta tell ya, seeing everyone whining and crying in here makes me love the Astros even more. I mean, when we won that WS in 2017, it was amazing because of what it meant for the city and all of the people. But really, an accomplishment doesn't feel truly spectacular unless it also hurts other people. Like, the Eagles winning the Super Bowl was great. But knowing we got to tell the Cowboys to suck it, made it that much better. Unfortunately, that "suck it" feeling, only lasts so long. Another team comes along and wins and you no longer have that feeling.
But seeing how much everyone is mad 3 years later, this is amazing! You guys have no idea how flavorful the taste of your tears actually is. Please don't ever stop. Reading the last page of this thread has been an absolute treat.
NREC34
Footballguy
NREC34
Footballguy
Cheating is cheating. If you cheat to get a better player on your team that might be worse. Instead of an even competition it’s just who pays the most money.
gump
Footballguy
Auburn paid to get Cam. What they didn’t do was cheat between the lines. The way people look back at Au-Cam will be wildly better than your guys will go down.
ChiefD
Footballguy
It's so rewarding as a Royals fan to know that comeback we dropped in your home park in 2015 drove the Astros over the edge into Cheaterville.
TheIronSheik
SUPER ELITE UPPER TIER
Don Quixote
Footballguy
I guess it extends to Twitter too...
NREC34
Footballguy
So you think it’s right that a group of schools pays and gets the best players? Then when my school that doesn’t have much gets a shot to play one of the big boys it’s a 57-3 score. They get laughed at, put in the ESPN bottom 10, etc.
NREC34
Footballguy
The Astros were behind the times according to The Athletic.
You guys can believe what you want. I know whoever you root for is totally innocent and would never think about doing anything.
