Connolly: As fans, would you be OK with your team cheating if it meant winning a World Series title?

[jjnono]

28 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

No politics.

Yeah, my apologies.  Wasn't trying to make a political statement, but I suppose I did.  I'll fix it.

[Sessh]

"Cheaters" win all the time. The HOF is full of players using such methods which is probably true of every major sport. If it didn't pay to cheat, people wouldn't do it. It works. You only need to be able to get away with it long enough to achieve your goal. I'm not saying anyone should do it that way or anything, but let's not pretend it doesn't pay to cheat. It does... unfortunately. I don't think most folks really care about asterisks. Cheating or not, winning is hard and is a great accomplishment at this level any way it's done. Even if you set records or win championships, you still get to keep them. They're still yours forever unless you're Lance Armstrong. He had to give his medals back, but people still love him anyway and he'll always be remembered for what he did on the bike and not all the repeated and persistent denials and lies he made right to the face of all the people who supported him for many years nor the methods he used to accomplish it all.

The thing that bothered me about the Astros situation is that it went all the way to the top and so did the denials. It also bothers me how much flack Fiers gets for saying something about it. I don't get why "whistleblowers" get more hate than the crimes they are exposing. I find the whole "shoot the messenger" stuff to be disturbing generally. Fiers didn't do anything wrong by ousting it and it's not hard to see why a player wouldn't oust it while being a member of that team.

Would I be ok with a championship via cheating? If it was something as blatant as what the Astros did? I think I wouldn't feel good about it. Every time I heard that trash can banging from the O's dugout, it wouldn't feel good. I think I'd rather lose than get a dagger in the back afterwards knowing our new GM was complicit in this. If it was PEDs? Wouldn't care. A little pine tar on the fingertips? Nope. Using technology to steal signs and then signal the batter from the dugout what pitch is coming is too far IMO. Unfortunately, there will likely be more of this as more technology comes into the sport. It is and always will be a double edged sword that may be sharper on the undesirable side of the blade.

Also, life is not so black and white that "right is right and wrong is wrong".. what is right or wrong can change dramatically based on circumstance. What I feel is right or wrong sitting at home on my couch leading a comfortable life would be much different than if I was on the front lines of a battlefield or starving to death with my family on the streets in poverty. Is it wrong to steal food if you and your family are starving to death or is it wrong to stop them? Black and white morality arguments don't work for me. A little off topic there, sorry.

[Sanfran327]

Tempted to say yes. For Astros fans, this is well over a year after the fact. The emotions of that night were real and the circumstances were not yet known. Those feelings were real and organic, and will never be taken away. They got a parade. They got their merch. It all happened. Sucks to find out after the fact that it was tainted, but that moment was still real, and that's what you're after as a fan. 

[tntoriole]

6 hours ago, RZNJ said:

The White Sox threw the 1919 series. They lost 5 games to 3 in a best of nine. 

Yes, I know.  My point was to contrast the situation in the OP  where your team cheats to win the Series, wins it, fans get thrilled...like Houston...then the scandal is revealed and fans are devastated.   But White Sox fans in 1919 never got to be thrilled because their team cheated to lose, not win, the Series.  So when they were subsequently revealed, fans did finally have an explanation...well,  we WERE the better team and could have won except for those cheaters. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Of course not.

[DrungoHazewood]

19 hours ago, NCRaven said:

Greta Thunburg.  She's got a big head start on Bono.  Took him 60 years to get this bad.

Actually I think Bono's peak sanctimonious was in the late 80s, Rattle and Hum era.  He was still a true believer. Then they went back and retooled and (with varying levels of success) goofed around with irony.  Now Bono regularly talks about how he knows he rubs people the wrong way, but yea, still has more than a little of our music will save us all vibe going on.

[Frobby]

21 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

But the very definition of cheating precludes a fair game.

I can't stand nebulous standards like this.  Same thing happened with the PEDs.  Guys taking speed in their coffee was fine.  Guys in the 70's taking horse steroids was fine.  The Bash Brothers were somehow OK.  All of a sudden guys just got a little too good at taking advantage of PEDs and boom, it's a problem.

Evidently the Astros' sin wasn't cheating, it was being too good at cheating.

So let’s say there’s a highway where the speed limit is 55.    Most of the traffic is going 62-65.    All of a sudden here comes a guy zooming along at 80.     Do you have a problem with the cops pulling the guy over?

Life isn’t black and white.    There’s a degree of variance from the letter of the law that gets tolerated, and exactly where that line gets crossed isn’t always crystal clear.    But the Astros clearly crossed it.   

[osfan83]

21 hours ago, Oriole1940 said:

After reading some of these posts it is clear to me why the society is in the shape it is.  Apparently the crime to some folks is not to cheat, but to get caught.  And while laws change, right and wrong do not.  That is why the Creator put a conscience in people, to tell them right from wrong, not the State telling us what it is on certain days of the week..  

Right and wrong are subjective......Is eating meat on Friday right or wrong? Is using electricity to make your life easier right or wrong? 

[osfan83]

17 hours ago, Sanfran327 said:

Tempted to say yes. For Astros fans, this is well over a year after the fact. The emotions of that night were real and the circumstances were not yet known. Those feelings were real and organic, and will never be taken away. They got a parade. They got their merch. It all happened. Sucks to find out after the fact that it was tainted, but that moment was still real, and that's what you're after as a fan. 

Exactly! What if we learn tomorrow that Delmon Young was tipped off on the pitch he hit to help beat the Tigers...does that feeling you got when Hardy beat the throw go away? 

[Moose Milligan]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Actually I think Bono's peak sanctimonious was in the late 80s, Rattle and Hum era.  He was still a true believer. Then they went back and retooled and (with varying levels of success) goofed around with irony.  Now Bono regularly talks about how he knows he rubs people the wrong way, but yea, still has more than a little of our music will save us all vibe going on.

Only took him 30+ years to figure it out.  What an obtuse buffoon.  

[jerios55]

So my preference would be no cheating, but obviously there is little control over that.

If the O's did win, we'd all celebrate and it would be an awesome moment.  The asterisk would be tarnish that, but not change the feeling.

Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France 7 times, celebrated 7 times and the runner up likely gets little to no satisfaction (at least in the same sense as winning originally would be). 

I really want to know what it's like to see the O's win a WS.  If it when it happens I hope it is legit.  If they turn out as cheaters it will tarnish the memory, but I'd still know the feeling.  So personally, I'm not sure I can say yes or no to this.