Acsenray, I don’t know what you’re talking about here, but the rest of the folks in this thread seem to be talking about sports. If you want to talk about some other sort of activity that works completely differently than every other sports activity in history, feel free to make your own thread about it.
I have some sympathy with what** Acsenray** is trying to say. I am also rather depressed about how players these days seem incapable of making decisions on the field for themselves. Sure, have the coaches and managers work with the players during the week to produce a game plan etc - but when the players step on the field, that should be it. There’s a mental side to any tactical sport during play - why don’t the players have to manage that? Take tennis - there the players are not allowed to receive in-game coaching, yet they go through all sorts of tortuous subterfuge to hide the fact that they are attempting to anyway.
The players on the field should be responsible for every decision made by their team in the course of the game. The current image of a coach prowling the sidelines continually barking instructions to players whilst being fed information from an army of assistant coaches is not particularly appealing.
I also agree about substitutions - pick your team, run what ya brung. Injury subs are fine (yes, it’s not perfect and they will be abused - but it’s still better than unlimited tactical substitutions). Players should be able to do all the skills required - sure, they will have their specialities, but they should have more than just that.
I’m not saying the current situation is cheating - this is not against the rules. But it is against the spirit how I think sport should be played.
The thread had gotten a bit sidetracked but my $0.02:
Ultimately, games/sports are played for personal enjoyment and for the enjoyment of spectators. You can try to design some kind of purity standard to be considered a “real” sport or for a sport to be “properly” played, but, like a lot of purity standards, that misses the forest for the trees. As both players and fans, we currently don’t mind coaches (or substitutions or whatever). And rather than some nebulous purity standard serving some non-existent ideal, it’s the players and fans who should be served.
Actually, this whole importance ascribed to the proper play to approach games is also a bit of a modern fad. Games and their rules changed all the time in the past. I’m sure there were some people who didn’t like it, but that never stopped any of those games from changing when a sufficient number of people agreed to all play the same way.
If you personally think games should be played a certain way, go nuts and insist on your own house rules when you are on your own home turf. But don’t expect others to go along with it. This is how games have always been played/changed since time immemorial. It is, in one sense, the purest and most ancient way to play games.
Munch makes a good point here:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=22079256&postcount=321
All of this only came to light because a player said something. If this had led to a bunch of players getting penalized or even banned from baseball, no other player would ever come forward. The guys you rat out might be your teammates one day.
I am disappointed that the owners didn’t get hit harder.
The value of a championship to the owners is a lot more than 5 million dollars.
This penalty is going to have a deterrent effect.
Electronic communication with team specific encryption, give the pitcher one of those secret service ear pieces.
Sounds like a whole load of nothing.
One team is trying to send secret signals, the other is trying to find out what they are. It is a public space and I couldn’t care less. Find a way to pass messages or agree tactics that can’t be intercepted if it bothers you so much.
There is a lot of rock paper scissor to pitching/hitting. If you tell batters what pitch is coming, it’s not quite like telling you that the other guy is going to throw scissor but it’s might be like telling you that the other dug is not going to throw rock.
The game is supposed to be about hitting a ball and running, not developing uncrackable information transmission systems.
Currently it’s against the rules to send signals electronically. It’s also against the rules for the opponent to use electronic means to intercept and/or relay those signals. Using non-electronic methods of doing either is allowed. If you excuse electronic surveillance to steal signals but not the other way around then you’re giving one side an unfair disadvantage. I think that’s what went over your head here.
To repeat: sending secret signals and intercepting them is allowed. The use of electronics to assist that isn’t, on either side. The Astros used cameras to spy and gained an advantage against the rules and again the other side wasn’t allowed to use.
Do you now get why this is more than a “whole load of nothing”?
And yet both baseball and football do include that as part of the sport. An important part that can mean the difference between winning and losing.
The catcher has to know what pitch is coming otherwise you get a lot of passed balls and a lot of stolen bases. The communication goes from catcher to pitcher because a signal from the pitcher can be read by the batter and the pitcher might as well be yelling the signals to the catcher, and that sorta defeats the purpose.
Catchers can also relay signals from the manager and coach.
My catching coach believes its because:
Pitchers= the dumb
Catchers= the smart
This is not necessarily true but a catcher will frequently know the batters better than the pitcher, especially a relief pitcher.
I have argued that Pete Rose deserves to be inducted while he still breathes but I can see why opinions might differ.
I cannot understand the resistance to vacating the eternal ban on Joe Jackson. There is so much evidence that he was innocent that no court would ever convict. It’s been almost a century.
I think Novelty Bubble got it from the beginning but didn’t really care.
From a baseball fan’s perspective, it matters a great deal.
From the perspective of somebody who doesn’t follow the sport, especially anybody from a culture that doesn’t play baseball, this seems like the typical sports thing - life and death important to somebody who follows it but vaguely silly and unimportant to everybody else.
I’ll admit, the whole thing (the cheating and the reactions to it) does seem vaguely ridiculous if I step back. I probably react the same way when I see engaged soccer fans get heated over dives or whatever. But that’s what makes sports fun, and the reaction is very human - we get passionate about things that really don’t matter in the grand scheme.
Meh, they can make an exception. The ball field is covered with cameras from every angle, instant replay technology has been around for a long time. We are about to implement robo-umpiring. Players are using ipads to figure out how to handle their next at bat. We just don’t want technology enhancing the player’s natural ability.
Or little league team for that matter. I distinctly remember yelling at the batter to run and stop looking at the ball on pretty much every hit.
I’m sure there are people out there that think that we should allow 9 designated hitters in baseball.
Yeah but it looks like you want to limit the players too. You want football teams to run the same guys on offense and defense.
So hit the ball and run and stop whining.
No, I understand that what they did is technically against the rules but I’m not able to consider it a big deal.
There was an analogous situation in the UK where a football team was sanctioned for spying on their opponents preparations for an upcoming game. I thought the reaction in that case was over the top as well. For some context, that fine is three times the size handed out to Bulgaria as a result of their racist abuse at a recent England game. Glad that football has it’s priorities in order.