MLB Pseudo-Season 2020: Roger, Dodgers

Oh, stop clutching your pearls. Baseball has never been clean. For God's sake, Babe Ruth was a fat drunk who tried shooting ram testosterone into his ass to see if it would help him build muscle. For decades players weren't facing the best competition in the world because of institutionalized segregation. We literally have spitballers in the Hall of Fame. Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle all used amphetamines, which were passed around clubhouses like candy starting in the '50s and going well through the early 2000s. Guys in the '80s were doing mountains of coke.

Get out of here with this "No True Scotsman" bullshit and suggesting that the guys of yesteryear cheated in a more honorable way or whatever.

 

So do you advocate for the recall of Mays and Aaron and Mantle from the Hall? If not, you're being intellectually dishonest and you're still playing a game of No True Scotsman. You can't erase the 1990s and the 2000s because you think the way they cheated then was worse. PEDs literally weren't even against the rules of baseball until 2006.

 

Nailed it. The Mets are finalizing a deal with quality control coach Luis Rojas to be their new manager.

 

I think it's wrong to demonize '90s players for steroid allegations when they literally weren't against the rules.

Pete Rose broke Rule 21(d) and voluntarily accepted his ban (in exchange for John Dowd not including evidence that had Rose dead to rights for betting against the Reds in his final report). Players and coaches betting on baseball undermines the integrity of the game in a far deeper and more fundamental way than doping ever could, because if the fix is in, then why the hell should we watch?

 

Also, beyond that, everyone knew that baseball had a PED problem by 1989. The union knew it, the owners knew it, the writers knew it, the commissioner's office knew it (edit: and Fay Vincent even issued a memo shortly before leaving office saying that PEDs were banned. It was a meaningless memo, because that sort of thing has to be collectively bargained, but the commissioner's office absolutely knew for a long time that there was more than water and Gatorade going through clubhouses). But everyone turned a blind eye when Sosa and McGwire basically rescued baseball and restored it to national prominence with the 1998 home run chase despite both of them being juiced to the gills.

It's incredibly hypocritical to have basked in the riches of the steroid era and then turn around a decade later and basically say those guys are worse than Satan.

You could get suspended by MLB if you got into legal trouble, or if you did something like show up to work drunk or high. (See: Darryl Strawberry and his frequent entanglements with the police due to his love of nose candy.) But MLB and the MLBPA didn't agree to the Joint Drug Agreement until 2006.

 

There could be only one writer who left Jeter off. Another one would have been disre2pectful.

 

Actually, players don't get to choose which team's hat their (very creepy) plaque is wearing. It used to be that way, but it all changed when Wade Boggs put his plaque up for sale and teams were bidding on it (Tampa Bay was rumored to have offered several hundred thousand dollars for him to go in as a Devil Ray, despite Boggs having two solidly mediocre years with them at the twilight of his career). As a result, the Hall of Fame changed its rules, and now the executive board decides the cap that a player wears when going in, though they do weigh the player's wishes.

The only exception is for players and managers who had exceptional careers with multiple teams, e.g. Mike Mussina, Greg Maddux, Tony La Russa; in that case the Hall offers the inductee the option of going in with a blank cap. (I remember Mussina, in particular, was really torn, because he was lights-out for both the Orioles and the Yankees; he loves Baltimore but he had arguably greater success as a Yankee, so he ultimately opted for the blank cap.)

 

MLBTR is reporting that the Red Sox and Padres are engaged in trade talks regarding Mookie Betts. The word is that Betts goes to San Diego in exchange for Wil Myers--WIL MYERS--and some prospects.

Jesus fucking Christ, the MLBPA was so unbelievably stupid to roll over and accept the luxury tax.