Video of Altuve

[Enjoy Terror]

1 minute ago, atomic said:

So you are saying if a baseball player was found throwing baseball games because he had a deal with organized crime but the cheating ended two years earlier he wouldn't be suspended?  I don't believe that for a second.  

No, I didn’t say that.

[Enjoy Terror]

You have to objectively tie all these players to wrong doing. You will never be able to do that.

[Uli2001]

37 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Oh come on.  Again, people wanting to see what they want to see.  I'm not saying you are, but people inferring that Chapman's smirk is somehow knowing that the Astros were cheating is absurd.

Dude hung a slider that was belt high and out over the plate.  You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that that pitch usually gets hammered.  Altuve can do that not knowing it was coming.

Maybe the Dodgers were cheating, too.  I haven't been reading every article and every tweet but it's been my belief that if teams are being quiet about this, they've probably got something to hide and don't want anyone looking at them.  As of yet, I haven't seen any statements from the Dodgers about how outraged they are, etc.  If I haven't, it's because I haven't looked in the right places.

The point was not that the cheating helped Altuve on that HR, but that Chapman and the Yankees knew or suspected that they were cheating.

[atomic]

Gaylord Perry 10 game suspension

Phil Niekro 10 game suspension

Don Sutton 10 game suspension

All 3 Hall of Fame pitchers suspended for doctoring the balls. 

[FlaO'sFan]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/former-mlb-pitcher-jack-mcdowell-alleges-80s-white-sox-tony-la-russa-cheated-with-camera/ar-BBZ3W51?li=BBnba9I

[Ripken]

14 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't necessarily disagree, but tell me where and when you start and stop player suspensions.  Which players for how long, etc.  

Yeah, not simple, but doing nothing is terrible.  I'm not in a position to see/know the evidence.  And, yes, players have moved elsewhere.  I don't care.  It's January, teams have time to make other arrangements.  It's not like some major hitter has left the Astros in the last two years and signed a big deal elsewhere (even then I wouldn't care).  Altuve, Bregman, Springer and anyone else who we know benefited from this need a year off. 

There are some people seriously underplaying this.  We will never know for sure, so we don't need the debate, but I absolutely believe Houston does not win the 17 championship without this scandal.  I had no opinion of that franchise at all prior to this.  There is no bias in me.  Hell, you could make a case it helped the Orioles get Adley instead of picking second that year and kept the damn Yankees from winning.  That certainly doesn't make it acceptable.  I don't know for sure, but when you consider the league wide ramifications of this -- hirings, firings, trades, FA deals, releases, W/L records, stats, draft order, playoff participation, gate revenue, etc -- it is massive.  And it happened TWO years in a row.  We haven't even see the results of that clusterF yet.  Cora should get a lifetime ban.

[atomic]

The whole thing you can't suspend every batter.  You can say you take a 20 day suspension and admit your wrong doing or we are going to do a life-time ban on you.  How many players will jump at that offer.  

[Uli2001]

Look, if cheating is "normal" in baseball, has been done forever, and everybody does it, then it doesn't deserved to be called "America's pastime." It's most decidedly anti-American.

But I disagree with the premise. I don't think it's normal and I don't think everybody does it. That's whay the cheaters need to be caught and eliminated from the game. If they are not serious about this, watch the game sink even further in popularity.

[joelala]

3 hours ago, esmd said:

Not sure where you're getting this.  I've seen zero info implicating Elias in any way.

Just a bad feeling. This will keep growing. 

[SteveA]

51 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Not to get off topic here but I'm pretty positive blacks were fighting for us in both World Wars.  Maybe not FULLY integrated to high officer levels but that becomes semantics when you take into consideration that there were blacks on the front lines giving their lives.  

That said, let's assume your statement is correct.  If so, it's sad that baseball, something in comparison meaningless in importance when compared to armed forces, was the first to show the way.  Don't get me wrong, it's GREAT that baseball, Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey paved the way and opened up societies eyes but it's sad that it took that long.  And it's sad that, as important as baseball is to some, that it was baseball that had to take that stride before anything else.

And correct, it didn't cause fans to doubt whether the outcomes of games were fairly achieved...but again, way easier to point fingers at guys we see every day instead of whoever the Indians owner was in '85.  But fans then should have doubted whether or not that their team was doing their best to win.  I mean, if you're a Yankees fan back then and you come to find out that your team doesn't get Carlton Fisk because Steinbrenner is the ringleader in organizing the owners in order to keep salaries down...well, it doesn't even get to a stage where you're allowed to wonder if the outcome of a game is fairly achieved.  The owners don't allow it to because they're too preoccupied with sticking it to the players.  

But I get what you're saying, you're talking about the on field play and what happens between the lines.  Even then, I'm not sure this is worse than the Black Sox.  

Just to set the historical record straight, yes, African Americans served heroically and died in both World Wars.   For the most part they were in all black, segregated units (sometimes with a white commander).   There were exceptions where blacks served in subservient positions such as cooks in all white units, especially in the Navy, but for the most part you had all black units and all white units.   President Truman ordered the military to be desegregated in 1948.   (Who knows, it is POSSIBLE that seeing America's Pastime integrated the year before helped play a part in convincing Truman that it could be done in the military).

[OsEatAlEast]

10 minutes ago, Enjoy Terror said:

You have to objectively tie all these players to wrong doing. You will never be able to do that.

Not unless each team has a Bigbie that turns states evidence to avoid tougher charges.

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, SteveA said:

Just to set the historical record straight, yes, African Americans served heroically and died in both World Wars.   For the most part they were in all black, segregated units (sometimes with a white commander).   There were exceptions where blacks served in subservient positions such as cooks in all white units, especially in the Navy, but for the most part you had all black units and all white units.   President Truman ordered the military to be desegregated in 1948.   (Who knows, it is POSSIBLE that seeing America's Pastime integrated the year before helped play a part in convincing Truman that it could be done in the military).

Thanks, exactly what I meant.   Blacks were good enough to die for their country in combat, but not good enough to share a barracks with a white guy.    

There were even black units in the Civil War.    Some argued they didn’t have the “character” or “mental capacity” to fight.    But Ulysses Grant felt strongly otherwise, and had no reservations about the capabilities of his black troops.    

[SteveA]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

Thanks, exactly what I meant.   Blacks were good enough to die for their country in combat, but not good enough to share a barracks with a white guy.    

There were even black units in the Civil War.    Some argued they didn’t have the “character” or “mental capacity” to fight.    But Ulysses Grant felt strongly otherwise, and had no reservations about the capabilities of his black troops.    

Glory is one of the best war movies ever made.   You watch a lot of movies so I'm sure you've probably seen it.   But if by chance you haven't, then correct that omission as quickly as possible!

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, sportsfan8703 said:

1.  It really helps when you’re not gearing up to hit a 100 mph FB. 

2.  If it didn’t help, they wouldn’t have done it. 

3.  Bonds never failed a drug test. 

MLB has become cycling. Just a sport where everyone is cheating and the best cheaters win. 

I agree with all your points.

The conclusion that Bonds never failed a drug test doesn't really summarize what happened here.  And to your cycling point, Lance Armstrong didn't, either.  

But because some guys banged on a trashcan doesn't mean that Altuve and others were wearing buzzers that let them knew what pitches were coming.  It doesn't mean that Altuve was cheating on every pitch on every at bat throughout the entire season.  It doesn't mean that when he got a base hit, he knew it was coming and it doesn't mean that when he struck out they weren't using their system.  The results aren't that binary.

This is different than Bonds because Bonds, for years, had that juice running through his veins.  Every at bat of Bonds, post 1999 or whenever he started juicing, was automatically amplified by whatever he was taking.  

It's easy to assume that every time the Astros got a hit that it was a result of the batter knowing it was coming.  That might not necessarily be the case.

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Glory is one of the best war movies ever made.   You watch a lot of movies so I'm sure you've probably seen it.   But if by chance you haven't, then correct that omission as quickly as possible!

I haven’t seen it, partly because my wife doesn’t like war movies.     I’ve missed out on many highly regarded war movies like Apocolypse Now, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and lots of others for that reason.   I only saw Saving Private Ryan on TV when my wife wasn’t around.