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Sox cut Cora

The Red Sox announced today that they have, as they say, parted ways with Alex Cora over the Astros sign-stealing scandal:

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The Red Sox are trying to put a "we're less than concerned" spin on the actual devastating scandal at hand. Sort of like the band continuing to play as the Titanic sank. What did John Henry know and when did he know it?

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its just a dumb game

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Not surprising, but, noted.

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This is about issuing purity tests that you yourself cannot pass, senator.
-- Mayor Pete

Yes, this is potentially one of the worst cheating scandals in MLB history and the surface has barely been scratched. John Henry and his handpicked staff are considered baseball statistical geniuses. Nobody noticed the stratospheric 108 win 2018 season was inexplicable? When did Henry realize his team was cheating? Pete Rose, a much more significant part of MLB history, was banned 31 years ago and still isn't back. Surely Cora (and potentially Henry) will be banished also despite the Red Sox misplaced, flowery rhetoric.

The larger question remains, was Henry in on the cheating or oblivious to it? It's unclear which is worse. Either way, he and the team should suffer greatly. As many have noted, if legendary commissioner Bowie Kuhn was still in charge, the Astros and Red Sox two recent World Series titles would be vacated and rightfully awarded to the teams that "lost" the World Series. Now into his 70s, Henry will have little time to recover his reputation. Somewhere, Tom Yawkey is getting a good laugh. As Mayor Pete said, "enough of the purity tests that you yourself can't pass." The retort was aimed at Senator Warren but Henry is the male equivalent. Wealthy, Northeast liberal lecturing the unwashed while cheating all the way to the Senate/Yawkey Way Jersey Street. My guess is the fate and remaining smidgen of credibility of the Globe is in the balance here if Henry cashes out (or is banned) with the Red Sox and cuts his losses with the paper. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.

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This has nothing to do with your need to take a dump on people you have political disagreements with. Are you ever able to just be a human being?

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Fish stayed pretty apolitical with this post, sticking to the issues at hand.

Perhaps someone on this thread is making this about politics, no?

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I mean, the topic is baseball, so I'd argue bringing in an attack on Elizabeth Warren is making things just a little bit about politics.

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I would say that the Buttigieg quote had some merit in Fish's claim that looking for clean people in all of this would be difficult. As opposed to some (okay many) of his comments in the past, Fish doesn't delve deeper than quoting a Presidential candidate. I think we should be giving him a gold star or something for staying on baseball for the majority of the comment, though agreeing with the substance of the comment is another story. That's fair game.

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and antagonistic to say "Wealthy, Northeast liberal lecturing the unwashed while cheating all the way to the Senate."

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I disagree with your former point, but the latter point is a very good counter to my position.

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There is no daylight between them.

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This is a bit much even for you.

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That's right, a troll.

Thanks for the compliment, I guess.

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I do not think it means what you think it means.

I'm not one of the contributors who injects irrelevant and incendiary commentary to threads. Kinopio does, by making every thread about murderous drivers. Fish does, by making every thread about those horrible people out to attack Our President. You do in a different way. You're not a one-note like they are, but you're strongly right-leaning againsty, and you always couch what you say in faux-reasonable-and-objective terms. But you share their tactic of injecting the irrelevant.

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Fish (whose comments I actually only skim over) had something substantive to say about the topic at hand, with admittedly a smidge of politics thrown in. I mean, it was an opinion, but in a case like this, isn't that all people have. Now, is it trolling to seize on his overall political stances as the point to attack? I'd say so, which is why I defended that aspect of his response.

I like to think that when I comment, I try to add to the discussion. Do I act in a contrary fashion from time to time? Perhaps, but conversely, I rarely go the route of bashing someone unless there is something over the top they write. I ask you this- when you replied to my defense of Fish, did you add anything substantive, or did you decide to sling mud? You do often comment in a way that is insulting of others rather than adding to a discussion. Perhaps our definition of trolling is a bit different.

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But this is what I see.

1. O-Fish's comment was just bait. It was not good analogy, and he put it in quotes to pathetically beg for readers. And nobody responded to the substance of his post, so I guess he needed to use bait.

2. Defending O-Fish is defending an obscure tangent. Defending it in 3 comments is consistent with concern trolling.

3. I don't think you mean to troll, it seems accidental. Which is actually worse than trying to troll.

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1 1/2 is when someone else brought up the political angle, thus starting this tangent. I didn't start that, only reacted to it.

Honestly, the worst thing I've done is to keep this going while actually agreeing with someone else that I missed something with Fish's comment, but that boils down to someone insulting me, which, I've got to say, is a form of trolling he does frequently.

As one who typically spars with you, your breakdown is almost fair (see my first point) and well reasoned.

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Your "concern" is defending OFISH. You repeatedly comment that his post was mostly on topic. The percentage of words that OFISH devoted to dishonest flaming is irrelevant to the subsequent criticism of his comments. The fact that no one (including you) responded substantively to the baseball comments erodes your defense of fish. One comment is a reaction. Repeated argument is trolling. Nothing in your comments is political. You decided to perversely defend OFISH to amuse yourself (unconsciously?). This is why lbb called you a troll. I have also learned that many (if not most) trolls don't do this purposely. I am not insulting you, I am giving you constructive feedback.

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First, Fish definitely did post on the topic of the Red Sox being tainted by the sign stealing scandal as a view of the scandal overall, his point being... just read what he wrote.

Second, in fact there was substantive discussion of the merits of his feelings that Red Sox brass had to have known what was going on. Look below this comment and see for yourself.

I've defended my defense. You can disagree. But let's have some facts in this discussion.

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I did not deny that Fish discussed baseball. There does seem to be one baseball response.

But what you and I are discussing is trolling. The percentage of words devoted to political flaming doesn't defend his fish's comments. It is the informal fallacy of relative privation (also known as "not as bad as") . You are dismissing a complaint because most of Fish's comments are worse. That is why your comments were described as "injecting the irrelevant" and labeled trolling when you kept at it.

Now, is it trolling to seize on his overall political stances as the point to attack? I'd say so, which is why I defended that aspect of his response.

This is why I don't think you understand what we mean by trolling. It is not trolling to criticism Fish's for bringing his weird brand of politics to every single comment he makes. It is just criticism.

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If it is not trolling to criticize Fish's statement, how is it trolling to criticize the criticism? I mean, I agree with the former, but again, I take issue with the latter.

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as I explained it is your method. you act out the troll character like you are performing a psa about poor commenting.

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Yes, this is potentially one of the worst cheating scandals in MLB history

Spoken like somebody who clearly doesn't know anything about MLB history.

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While this is definitely a major scandal, calling into question two separate WS winners, there is a big, bold, solid line difference between cheating to gain an advantage (like Cora, et al.) and gambling on games you are taking part in (Rose, Black Sox, etc.). One is going too far while trying to achieve the same goal as everyone else. The other is making a mockery of the whole idea of competition in the aim of making a few extra bucks.

I would think the better comparison for this scandal is the Steroid Era. Some interesting contrasts. This scandal is just about two teams, albeit championship winning teams, and a handful of coaches (though I guess there are rumors of this type of thing being widespread). PED use, on the other hand, seems almost universal in hindsight (well, I exaggerate a little). Players and teams have tried to gain an advantage through dodgy medicine since Babe Ruth, but the Steroid Era is when things went way overboard. Sign stealing has long been part of the game, but using a live video feed to do it changes what has been one of the most fundamental truths of the Pitcher/Batter relationship for well over a century. Steroids were technically banned in '91, but there was no enforcement for more than a decade after. Using contrivances (like TVs or apple watches) to steal signs is specifically illegal and the commissioner himself has sent warnings about it, so doing it is kinda playing with fire.

Anyway, a lifetime ban for Cora seems a little strong for a non-gambling related offense, but if he was the ringleader at Houston and brought something similar to the Sox, he should probably get a few years (and then I doubt he'll manage again even when the ban is over).

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Baseball sucks, but it doesn't suck as much as your incoherent rambling. Go find another audience.

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It's equivalent of the Titanic's owners releasing a statement through the press (which they own) explaining that both they and the captain have decided to "part ways" while simultaneously ordering the band to play another tune and encouraging passengers to re-arrange the deck chairs while they wait for a rescue ship to be named later.

Also, single-game tickets go on sale Friday, January 25, at 10 a.m.

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If you only read the Globe you would think the Red Sox and BC Football are two massive sports empires with tremendous legacies. The Red Sox are struggling to stay relevant as baseball declines and BC football can't even fill their stadium once per year. Pats & Revs, C's & B's still play second fiddle to this da. Meanwhile, soccer is booming across the region and cricket is booming across Boston, but you would never know it if you just followed the Globe.

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Alex did his job he won the world series. Stealing signs in baseball is as common as fare jumping on the MBTA.

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So using center-field cameras to steal signs during the game is ok?

They had a TV monitor set up right outside the dugout with a live feed.

The video replay room that is suppose to be use to determine whether or not to challenge a call was used to decode the signs.

You should really read up on Cora's scheme to see how insidious it was. Electronic sign-stealing is not part of the game and is cheating.

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overblown it's pathetic. If sign stealing really gives a team such an unfair advantage, then both the Astros and Sox batters should have had averages approaching 1000.

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If sign-stealing didnt give an advantage, why was Cora doing it?
And why was he hiding what he was doing?

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so because it's common makes it right? If we lost because the other team cheated, would you be as glib?

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So you're cool with cheating in order to win. Sounds familiar.

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Do you know how tiring it is to be a Boston fan these days?

We can't win a fucking thing without finding out someone cheated, might have cheated, seems to have cheated, definitely cheated, or didn't cheat but made everyone think they cheated.

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Ah, so no other city has teams that cheat in professional sports.

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Maybe it's envy on the part of other teams' fans, maybe "they all do it", but how bright do you have to be to realize that you'll be scrutinized, and that you really ought to keep your nose clean?

I mean, I get that if you're Cora and IF you cheated at Houston and IF that's your winning edge, you'd no doubt have the combination of flexible ethics and temptation to try it somewhere else. So if you're the management of that somewhere else, don't you think you should scrutinize the guy, and let him know he's under scrutiny? You don't have to suspect him, but if you've got the brains God gave geese, you will send the message to all your staff, and especially to any incoming wunderkinder, that everyone is looking at your team, and if you can't play clean, you need to play elsewhere.

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Not the point
By lbb on Wed, 01/15/2020 - 9:53am.
Maybe it's envy on the part of other teams' fans, maybe "they all do it", but how bright do you have to be to realize that you'll be scrutinized, and that you really ought to keep your nose clean?

So if you're the management of that somewhere else, don't you think you should scrutinize the guy, and let him know he's under scrutiny? You don't have to suspect him, but if you've got the brains God gave geese, you will send the message to all your staff, and especially to any incoming wunderkinder, that everyone is looking at your team, and if you can't play clean, you need to play elsewhere.

A few of points:

  1. as someone pointed out -- they all do it to some degree -- that's why the coaches, managers and players use "signs" all of the time with more complex signs between the catcher and pitcher when a player from the opposing team is on second base
  2. there are legendary anecdotal methods of stealing -- for example there were rumors that someone might have used binoculars from the Green Monster scoreboard to look at the catcher and perhaps the transmitted the information to the 3rd base coach using some signal based on how "out of town scores were displayed" -- and most significantly this might have happened during the 406 Ted Williams era
  3. this Houston / Boston sign stealing scandal using modern technology may just be the first time that the technology itself provided a "fingerprint" of how it was being done, and perhaps some record of it being done -- making it less of an anecdotal story
  4. the age of legal sports betting may have contributed to the severity of the punishment
  5. finally -- when the Sox were interviewing Cora for the position of Manager -- no one had made any allegations of use of sign stealing by Houston -- all the Sox knew was that Cora had been on a Championship caliber team
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Perhaps I didn't express myself well. My point was that Cora was coming from a championship team, to a big-money team with hopes of a championship, and every reasonable expectation on the part of everyone sane that he would be under scrutiny. Under those circumstances, I'd sure want to have the "whatever your secret sauce is, it better be on the up and up" conversation.

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They do all do it, it's the hypocrisy of selective penalization that's the sting here.

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the outcomes of those games would has been significantly different but for the sign stealing. Then I might start to be concerned that what happened here actually matters.

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Come on, hoss. It's only "selective penalization" if the authorities knew and didn't act. Got evidence of that?

"they all do it" is truthy, not truth. It sounds like it ought to be true, so it isn't examined. I would say, rather, that they all do whatever they think they can do within the boundaries of how they think the rules might be interpreted. Banging on a trash can to relay signals is blatantly beyond that. Now. Can you point to a similar instance that was a)known and b)not penalized?

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Reminds me of, "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

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In Everett.

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1) all teams cheat
2) sports should not be so critical to our lives that this causes an existential crisis.

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I don't recall either John Henry or Bob Kraft putting a gun to anybody's head and forcing them to buy tickets or watch the games on TV. Anyone who supports the racket that is pro sports with their ticket dollars or with their TV eyeballs is doing so entirely voluntarily.

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There was an enormous and significant amount of time to exercise protocol that is the downfall of the team.

Absurdly rediccullous and stupid to imbue such ill formulated means. That is well over three years of saturated foul standards!

All the endless efforts,teamwork and hard worn sweat for over one hundred years.......the town is mourning

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Did you eat a thesaurus?

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not a thesaurus that spells words properly.

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this is an ad for a casino where sports betting is legal? the sign is hanging on the green monster at fenway park where the red sox play 81 games per season? is it a problem if the team is taking money from casinos and management is cheating to change the outcomes of games? where is john henry here? maybe he should fall on his mighty sword.

btw, the whole 2018 championship and mookie betts MVP just seem seem cheap and dirty now.

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Not yet anyway. Guys are reaching for any whataboutism they can find.

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Seems ridiculous to have a rule for this anyway. Why not open it completely up and put the onus on the teams to come up with signs that are harder to steal, video/technology or not.

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This nonsense has already slowed a very slow game over the past couple of years. Pitchers won't throw and keep stepping off the mound in an effort to get around this problem. All in a game that cannot connect to younger fans because of the pace. Sure, let's have more of that.

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