Slashdot Mirror
Pitcher-Turned-Law Student On Cheating In Baseball
An anonymous reader writes "As a 27-year old minor league pitcher who had never made it to "The Show" (ballplayers' slang for the big leagues), Garrett Broshius was advised by a coach to develop an 'out pitch' by cheating (doctoring or scuffing the baseball while standing on the mound). It was an ethical crossroads faced by many players past and present, and Broshius ultimately decided to give up the game. While a student at the St. Louis University School of Law, he wrote a paper that attempted to apply the tenets of legal theorists to the rampant cheating in baseball and other sports (click the 'download' button, no registration required). While Broshius' paper isn't brilliant or novel, it tours the techniques and issues surrounding cheating in baseball better than most. Broshius concludes with recommendations for how baseball should handle two classes of cheating: 'traditional' cheating of the type he was advised to do by the coach, which has achieved acceptance in some quarters as part of the game; and 'new era' cheating involving performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids, which has become prominent in the last 25 years. Oh, and Brosius remarks that in almost every baseball game he watches these days, he notices something suspicious — usually from the pitcher."
I don't care what sport it is - when contracts worth millions of dollars are on the line, there will always be talented people willing to do whatever they have to in order to stay competitive and even excel.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
baseball needs more replay
Just as long it is about sports, we don't care about right and wrong or morals. But if a Scholastic student who wasn't good at sports did it. They will be locked up in jail for the rest of their life.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
after he gave up drinking for a time to please Marge:
I never realized how boring this game is.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Isn't that kinda the point of baseball? It's only cheating if they catch you? Is a scuffed ball any different from stealing a base?
Slow play and umps that can't find the strike zone with a telescope
Coaches should get red flag just like football so replay could be used. Replays should be done at MLB HQ like the NHL does it.
MLB should institute an automated strike zone and a pitch clock when no one is on base.
There's only one solution to a completely corrupt system. Walk away from it. Broshius made the correct decision by leaving the game behind him.
You cannot change a corrupted institution from within. I'll repeat that. You cannot change a corrupted institution from within. There are too many people inside who have spent their lives justifying and profiting from their misdeeds, who are not about to turn over a new leaf or air their dirty laundry because you've made an appeal to their conscience. They killed theirs long ago.
The best thing to do is leave the rotten ship to sink all by itself. Every honest person who stands by a rotten game, or bankrupted bank, or broken political party is just propping up an at best amoral system, and usually an immoral and even illegal one. There is no obligation to stay loyal or remain in solidarity with a disloyal and dishonest organisation.
Broshius has done more for baseball as a law student that he ever could have as a player or a fan.
May the Maths Be with you!
I've been trying to download this "baseball" game all morning and all every website I visit just shows me a bunch of sweaty dudes in pajamas.
They're using wooden controllers (!) and even worse, they're outside. Is this a beta? wtf
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
So the guy has an ethical dilemma with an out pitch but not with becoming an attorney? I have yet to meet an attorney that didn't employ at least a few ethically questionable tactics.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Here's the actual cheat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitball
Pretty disgusting stuff.
a good pitcher will know the batter's habits and style of swing and adjust his pitches for that. a good batter will avoid swinging at a bad pitch
Yogi Berra said it better: "Good pitching beats good hitting, and vice versa."
I am officially gone from
Aren't there bears outside?
I think he left out a third category of cheating: cheating that transcends the sport and becomes an object of admiration among fans. The textbook example would be Gaylord Perry. One of the more interesting sports interviews I've heard involved Perry describing his elaborate routines to keep the opposition guessing where he had hidden a gob of vaseline. Apparently there were people on the opposing team whose job it was to watch him during the game and try to catch him cheating. The vaseline, of course, moved from his pant leg, to his cap, to the back of his neck, which he rubbed to loosen up... etc. I agree with a previous post that the economic rewards are too large to stop it, but I admire the author of this article of refusing to take part. It is possible, I think, however, for people to become so accustomed to cheating that they accept some forms of it as part of the game. Gaylord perry demonstrating a spitter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXLc8hKoaBw
It sounds like his fans had roid rage.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
While I think the performance-enhancing drugs take things way too far, I don't know how much of an ethical dilemma I see with such tactics as figuring out a way to scuff up the baseball before throwing it, to try to achieve some unpredictability?
I'd tend to side more with the "it's just part of the game" camp on that, because when it comes right down to it? It's all about making it as difficult as you can for the batter to hit what you throw at him. A regulation baseball has certain parameters to it that can't be changed without substituting it for a modified ball, and to me THAT'S where you'd want to draw the line on what's allowed. I mean, if the weight of the ball is drastically altered or you use a smaller or larger ball, that's just as much a change as, say, scooting the bases closer together on the field.
As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather see the rest of it just be out in the open. Say "No, we simply don't CARE if you think you have some secret tactic to gouge up the ball a little bit or scuff up its surface before pitching it. Go for it if you think it helps you!" You're always going to have small changes that potentially give small advantages to those who take advantage of them. I'm pretty sure there are certain types of shoes with certain cleat patterns which wind up giving some slight advantage over others too. Are we going to get so anal, we require only shoes with soles matching a precise pattern and dimensions, or else it's "cheating"?
(And honestly, even on the whole drugs issue? The biggest reason I have any problem with that is because it wasn't widely in use or even available in previous generations -- yet part of the game involves tracking records and seeing who is talented enough to break them over time. It's not a fair "A to B" comparison anymore between the "old time greats" and today's players, if the modern players are all juiced up. If the sport actually came out and said, "We consider performance enhancing drugs to be fair play." and ALSO said a line would be drawn where old statistics were "frozen in time" and everything effectively started over? Then I'd be hard pressed to find a reason to call it "cheating" anymore. (I might not like the fact it encourages people to treat their own bodies as disposable for the purpose of getting a little more of an edge in the game ... but that's each individual's own decision to make.)
Everyone gets tested after a game, any single person come sup [sic] positive, then game is considered a loss. Happens twice, they give up 25% of merchandising for a year.
Fine, except that the tests are not perfect, and false positives exist. Think about it -- suppose the test was 99% accurate, but produced 1% false positives. There are 25 people on an MLB team, and the team plays an average of 6.3 games per week. That's an average of 25 * 6.3 = 157.5 tests per team per week, which will produce an average of 1.575 false positives per team per week, or 1.575 * 26 = almost 41 false positives in a 26-week season. Per team.
There are 30 teams in MLB, so under your proposal one is looking at (157.5 tests per team per week) * (30 teams) * (26 weeks per season) = 122,850 drug tests every season. The false positive rate would have to get down into the parts per million range to do anything other than punish random team owners for the finite quality of drug tests. The effect could, in fact, be counterproductive; with so many false positives, the actual drug users could be emboldened to hide among them.
I know baseball can be a slow game, but how did he find time to wank while on the mound?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
And yet the original wasn't called humanball, and whatever drugs are involved, the game still definitely involves bases.