109 replies to this topic

[Lethal_Striker]

I think that Shoeless Joe should go into the HOF since he may have taken the money from the gamblers to throw the game but he played to the top of his ability in the series.  And supposedly he wasn't a very bright guy so I'm not sure he was really sure what was going on.

[SuperNinjaDAISUKE!!!]

He accepted money to throw games, and then didn't throw the games? The man was clearly doubly untrustworthy.

Then again, to deny a man named Shoeless Joe a place in history is to deny possibly the best nickname in sporting history.

[Blazing Dragon]

There's a lot of evidence that Shoeless Joe was more or less railroaded and tricked into confessing and that he may not have had any involvement at all, other than possibly knowing the fix was in and not telling anyone. The lawyer who got him to confess employed some underhanded tactics that would get someone disbarred and possibly even tossed in jail if they tried it today. (In fact, Shoeless Joe was illiterate, so its quite possible he didn't even know what he was really signing) And years later some of the players involved admitted that they lied to the gamblers that Joe was in on it to make the deal look more appealing to the gamblers. The evidence against him really should have been tossed out. Shoeless Joe is the ONLY player banned for life who shouldn't have been, and Judge Landis was an asshole for banning him.

Go read the book Eight Men Out. Don't trust the movie, because they changed a few things for dramatic license/effect. For example, the movie had Eddie Cicotte being benched right away so he couldn't win 30 games to collect his bonus, when in real life he actually had two starts where he didn't do too well after he won his 29th game, before being benched. And since pitchers were expected to pitch a full game unlike today's pitchers, resting a pitcher for the playoffs before the season was over was a standard practice back then.

The one person who didn't get punished for the Black Sox scandal, in my opinion, was the team's owner, Charles Comiskey. The entire thing happened because he was a pennypinching asshole who treated his players like dirt. If anything, Joe Jackson should be put in the HoF and Comiskey tossed out.

[Josh Mann]

Not that Comiskey wasn't what we all know him to be, but that certainly didn't make him unique among owners at the time, hence the implication that the White Sox weren't the only team of that era who threw games. But it was the most obvious example at the highest level of something that had been the elephant in the room in baseball for years. Rather than combing through every possible indicia, it was easier for investigators and later Landis to simply make an example out of the White Sox.

[Blazing Dragon]

Oh, I'm by no means justifying what the White Sox did. I'm not at all. Most of them got exactly what they deserved.

But I think Joe Jackson was a scapegoat/victim more than anything, and Comiskey deserved a huge chunk of the blame, but got off scott free due to being the owner.

It also bothers me as a Reds fan, because it gave them a tainted championship, when there are quite a few historians who actually believe the Reds could have beaten them legitimately. (Not would have, but could have. BIG difference.)

[Nathan Davis]

Yeah that's just pure speculation by people, some of whom are probably looking back in hindsight and not saying that in 1920 or so.  What's interesting when you go back to the box scores is that the Reds committed 13 errors in 8 games; the White Sox committed 12.  And it wasn't until the last game that they jumped out from the gates and were all over Chicago.  The game would be going along scoreless until the middle-stages, and then things would swing in Cincinnati's direction.

None of that means anything really.  I just thought it was interesting.

[SuperNinjaDAISUKE!!!]

I have a confession: I was being a little facetious in my last post. If Shoeless Joe does deserve to get in, it's because he was a scapegoat and/or innocent; otherwise his ban is absolutely justified. I'm not going to claim any knowledge or opinion on the matter beyond that. On a conceptual level, I'd still put throwing on or betting on games in a hotter circle of hell than cheating to win games.

[Blazing Dragon]

SuperNinjaDAISUKE!!!, on May 11 2011, 05:03 PM, said:

I have a confession: I was being a little facetious in my last post. If Shoeless Joe does deserve to get in, it's because he was a scapegoat and/or innocent; otherwise his ban is absolutely justified. I'm not going to claim any knowledge or opinion on the matter beyond that. On a conceptual level, I'd still put throwing on or betting on games in a hotter circle of hell than cheating to win games.

So would I.

But I believe cheating by using PEDs is a worse crime that betting on baseball and as bad if not worse than throwing games.

I'd put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame (and I don't want him in, despite being a Reds fan) before I'd put a single cheater like McGwire, Clemens or Bonds in. They should be as banned as the Black Sox (except Jackson) are.

[SuperNinjaDAISUKE!!!]

I disagree. Part of the deal when you buy a ticket to see your team is that you're giving them money to play to win. That's the deal, and if they're throwing games, then what the fuck? That's why we got pro-wrestling. Betting on games is iffy business as well. It's not the same as outright throwing the games, but who's to say that you're always going to bet on yourself to win? In the case of Pete Rose, who's to say that he doesn't know something, someone's sick, someone's injured. It's my understanding that Rose accepted the ban before sworn testimony and a full investigation came into it.

Performance Enhancing Drugs on the other hand are a different thing. People cheating to win are still trying to win. Don't get me wrong, still cheating, still wrong but I don't believe it damages the foundation of professional sports like match fixing does. As I've said in this very thread, PEDs aren't banned because they enhance performance, they're banned because they are health risks; and in some cases [eg. HGH] there is evidence to suggest that they might not be as effective as performance enhancers are people have been lead to believe.

[Alstein]

Novacain, on Dec 9 2010, 08:22 AM, said:

Randoside note on the steroid era. Should Tony Larussa make the hall even though he built his coaching legacy of the steroid users who aren't getting in? I always viewed Tony as a guy who benefited greatly from the roid era and got no real backlash for it, so I'm curious on the no roid users in the hall groups thoughts.t

Bobby Cox should go in before Larussa.

as for the PED's, as far as I'm concerned, it's part of the era.  You don't know who is clean and who isn't.  For all we know Greg Maddux took more roids then the entire WWF locker room of the 80s, we don't have proof (and no, I don't think he was a roider, but even Dan Majerle busted a roids test once)