PliablyPurple said:

There are no guaranteed lineups for season ticket holders when they purchase their tickets. If that was the case, they would have to be consulted before major trades . I say get rid of all of em, from management to the players level. Let em sit for a season. Perhaps a bit naive to think that no cheaters exist in professional sports, but it's a damn shame when talent v/s talent is not allowed to be showcased. These fucks are not only cheating their opponents, they are juicing their numbers, which can lead to bigger paydays and higher ticket and concession prices. Fuck 'em and their "100 win" season. We thought those guys were really good, turns out they were just assholes.

The class action suit filings are about to begin. I'm getting junk from lawyers asking if I was a season ticket holder and if so, then they think I'm due some money. Poppycock.

PliablyPurple said:

Beginning to wonder if anyone has played the game cleanly. Lee Smith mentioned at the Cubs Convention that guys talked about "something going on in the center field clock" when he was there. And that, considering the amount of games they lost, somone wasn't doing it right . Fuck 'em all, let the fans in free if we are just going to watch a bunch of cheats.

Cheating has been going on since the sport's inception. In some ways it used to be even worse, from spitballs (remember Gaylord Perry?) to bats filled with superballs (Graig Nettles) to corked bats (Sammy Sosa, Chris Sabo, Albert Belle, etc) to pine tar on a pitcher's neck (Michael Pineda) to a pitcher using an emery board (Joe Niekro). Entire teams also were involved at times, such as the Blue Jays using a centre field camera to steal signs and the Twins having the cooling fans blowing toward the outfield in the Metrodome when the home team was up, and blowing toward the infield when the visiting team was batting.

The only reason it's a big deal now is because of the technology involved.

RodeoSchro said:

PliablyPurple said:

There are no guaranteed lineups for season ticket holders when they purchase their tickets. If that was the case, they would have to be consulted before major trades . I say get rid of all of em, from management to the players level. Let em sit for a season. Perhaps a bit naive to think that no cheaters exist in professional sports, but it's a damn shame when talent v/s talent is not allowed to be showcased. These fucks are not only cheating their opponents, they are juicing their numbers, which can lead to bigger paydays and higher ticket and concession prices. Fuck 'em and their "100 win" season. We thought those guys were really good, turns out they were just assholes.

The class action suit filings are about to begin. I'm getting junk from lawyers asking if I was a season ticket holder and if so, then they think I'm due some money. Poppycock.

Ambulance chasers! You can sue for just about anything. The court laughing in your face is always a real possibility, though. And precedent shows in these cases that there isn't much legal ground for fans to sue. I would be surprised if any fan lawsuit over this received a favorable outcome...unless legal betting was involved. I would guess that there's a stronger case for bettors than for season ticket holders, who were still given what they were promised.

But yeah, introduce a competitive sport and someone's gonna cheat. Before steroids, speed was widely used for that extra edge. Whether right or wrong, when I think of those types, I think of only a few players involved, not an entire team endorsed by the managers. That's funny about the Twins, though . Lol...kinda reminds me of the stories from the Boston Garden where they would close the windows to the already air conditioned-less building to make it hotter for opposing teams. Guess the idea was that the Celts were used to it.

PliablyPurple said:

RodeoSchro said:

The class action suit filings are about to begin. I'm getting junk from lawyers asking if I was a season ticket holder and if so, then they think I'm due some money. Poppycock.

Ambulance chasers! You can sue for just about anything. The court laughing in your face is always a real possibility, though. And precedent shows in these cases that there isn't much legal ground for fans to sue. I would be surprised if any fan lawsuit over this received a favorable outcome...unless legal betting was involved. I would guess that there's a stronger case for bettors than for season ticket holders, who were still given what they were promised.

But yeah, introduce a competitive sport and someone's gonna cheat. Before steroids, speed was widely used for that extra edge. Whether right or wrong, when I think of those types, I think of only a few players involved, not an entire team endorsed by the managers. That's funny about the Twins, though . Lol...kinda reminds me of the stories from the Boston Garden where they would close the windows to the already air conditioned-less building to make it hotter for opposing teams. Guess the idea was that the Celts were used to it.

LOL, the Houston Texans tried that once - in reverse. Our home opener was against Pittsburgh and our owner thought, "Hey! It's September and it's hot as Hades and those guys aren't used to this kind of heat! So what we'll do is make the Stealers wear their black jerseys AND we'll open the roof. The game is at noon, those guys will FRY!"

They fried all right. They fried our little backsides like there was no tomorrow. We made them so mad that not only did they kick our behinds, they stayed mad for five months and ended up winning the Super Bowl!

The worst part?

Our owner over-corrected and we haven't opened our $40,000,000 taxpayer-funded retractable roof since then.

RodeoSchro said:

PliablyPurple said:

Ambulance chasers! You can sue for just about anything. The court laughing in your face is always a real possibility, though. And precedent shows in these cases that there isn't much legal ground for fans to sue. I would be surprised if any fan lawsuit over this received a favorable outcome...unless legal betting was involved. I would guess that there's a stronger case for bettors than for season ticket holders, who were still given what they were promised.

But yeah, introduce a competitive sport and someone's gonna cheat. Before steroids, speed was widely used for that extra edge. Whether right or wrong, when I think of those types, I think of only a few players involved, not an entire team endorsed by the managers. That's funny about the Twins, though . Lol...kinda reminds me of the stories from the Boston Garden where they would close the windows to the already air conditioned-less building to make it hotter for opposing teams. Guess the idea was that the Celts were used to it.

LOL, the Houston Texans tried that once - in reverse. Our home opener was against Pittsburgh and our owner thought, "Hey! It's September and it's hot as Hades and those guys aren't used to this kind of heat! So what we'll do is make the Stealers wear their black jerseys AND we'll open the roof. The game is at noon, those guys will FRY!"

They fried all right. They fried our little backsides like there was no tomorrow. We made them so mad that not only did they kick our behinds, they stayed mad for five months and ended up winning the Super Bowl!

The worst part?

Our owner over-corrected and we haven't opened our $40,000,000 taxpayer-funded retractable roof since then.

Ha! It actually sounds reasonable (the dark jerseys/letting in more direct heat and light). Guess sweating the talent out of an opponenet is harder than it seems!

A guy did what I hoped someone would - analyze every pitch at Minute Maid Park that he could, and detail the results. Here's his site:

http://signstealingscandal.com/

He has data on 58 of the 81 regular-season home games. He couldn't find video for the other games but as those games are interspersed throughout the season, I'd imagine the results wouldn't be changed significantly if he could find those games.

The banging seemed to have started in earnest on May 28 and continued through September 21, when a White Sox pitcher expressed concern over what he was hearing on the mound.

There are several ways to look at this, but the main one would be: What was the Astros' record during the period of peak banging? (Man, that sounds dirty!)

There are 34 games for which data exists for the period of May 28 - September 21. The Astros record during that stretch was 18 - 16, which is well below their overall home record. The Banging Win Percentage was 52.9%.

The Non-Banging Win Percentage (April 3 - May 27, and September 22 - 24) was 64% - nearly 12 full percentage points better.

The fellow who did this study also watched home playoff games but could not discern any banging in them.

Now, none of this exonerates the Astros one iota. They cheated.

But what it does seem to show is that the banging didn't improve the Astros' record, and didn't taint the playoffs or the World Series.

The Astros, especially Crane and Altuve, are really doing what didn't seem possible - making themselves look even worse.

Crane started his press conference by saying the cheating didn't impact any games - seriously?

Altuve denied having a buzzer under his jersey when he hit the big homerun off Chapman last year.

Now nobody was happier for that homerun than me, but he looks like a complete tool for trying to say that:

a) He held tightly onto his jersey while rounding the bases "because his wife didn't want it pulled off". This is the same wife that is okay with a barechested Altuve on his social media accounts???

b) Immediately after rounding the bases, he chose to ignore the onfield celebration and instead went directly into the clubhous to "change his shirt" - seriously?

c) During that same game last year, there was no trashcan banging. So we are to believe they stopped cheating altogether, even though they had not gotten caught at that point? Seriously?

Hate to say it, but Altuve stole the 2017 MVP trophy from Judge.

If I were Altuve, I wouldn't get too comfortable in the batters box this year. Especially against the Yankees (the Astros don't play the Dodgers).

Good Luck Rodeo Schro

Back on topic, it's recently been revealed that both Hinch and Luhnow were a lot more involved in the cheating scandal than originally thought.

Will any team hire either of them ever again? It's looking like the answer is no.

[Off topic snip - luv4u]

PliablyPurple said:

Before steroids, speed was widely used for that extra edge. Whether right or wrong, when I think of those types, I think of only a few players involved, not an entire team endorsed by the managers. That's funny about the Twins, though . Lol...kinda reminds me of the stories from the Boston Garden where they would close the windows to the already air conditioned-less building to make it hotter for opposing teams. Guess the idea was that the Celts were used to it.

Ahhh ... the Bahston Gahden .... so many similar stories to the one you mentioned! Like there would be dead spots on the famous floor, the Celts knew where they were and didn't want to fix them.

And The Snowplow Game, how the heck was THAT allowed!

As Joe Montana once said, "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying."

"If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying."

Hmmm, interesting, considering who is parroting it. No matter what you do or say, this thread is dead and cannot be revived without Rodeo.

WTFuck?!?

Since when is a thread the property of the one who started it. He decides to abandon it and now no one is allowed to post in it? Is that the idea?

Wow! That's some crazy right there.

[Off topic snip - luv4u][/color]

djThunderfunk said:

WTFuck?!?

Since when is a thread the property of the one who started it. He decides to abandon it and now no one is allowed to post in it? Is that the idea?

Wow! That's some crazy right there.

No doubt! Imagine being on such an ego trip as to think they can force people from posting in an active thread ... and they didn't even start the damn thread! What, do they now think they took over the whole damn Org from Ben?

The person who started the thread didn't even bother to edit/delete what they had posted, so what does that say?

This Astros cheating scandal is, like the Jussie situation, an ongoing story that many many people still wish to discuss. It impacts millions of people, including myself who has been a baseball fan for several decades. I'm certainly not going to stop talking about it, and nobody is going to bully me into stopping.

poppys said:

Whine & gnash all u want. Threaddy's dead as of 2/12/2020.

There's no other reason for you to be here either. We all know u don't do sports. Your org shtick is complaining about other posters and "sides".

[Edited 2/17/20 9:42am]

Fascist much?

Pokeno4Money said:

djThunderfunk said:

WTFuck?!?

Since when is a thread the property of the one who started it. He decides to abandon it and now no one is allowed to post in it? Is that the idea?

Wow! That's some crazy right there.

No doubt! Imagine being on such an ego trip as to think they can force people from posting in an active thread ... and they didn't even start the damn thread! What, do they now think they took over the whole damn Org from Ben?

The person who started the thread didn't even bother to edit/delete what they had posted, so what does that say?

This Astros cheating scandal is, like the Jussie situation, an ongoing story that many many people still wish to discuss. It impacts millions of people, including myself who has been a baseball fan for several decades. I'm certainly not going to stop talking about it, and nobody is going to bully me into stopping.

"Bully" indeed!

If you want to keep talking about the subject, she can't stop you. If she keeps trying, just report her.

That nonsense is uncalled for.

[Edited 2/17/20 10:27am]

djThunderfunk said:

"Bully" indeed!

If you want to keep talking about the subject, she can't stop you. If she keeps trying, just report her.

That nonsense is uncalled for.

And that's exactly what I've been doing, reporting her. I made a promise that I wouldn't engage with the usual suspects or allow them to bait me, and I'm doing my best to keep that promise!

Some people just thrive on drama and hate, and they can't be changed. It's like they think they are in an episode of Housewives or something.

As horrific as what the Astros did the past few years, it's ridiculous how they are getting death threats against not only the players but also the players' families. Awful, just awful.

And fans who have been bringing signs teasing them to their games are having the signs confiscated.

Also Altuve already got hit by a pitch, albeit just grazed him.

Should be a very difficult season for the Asterisks this year.