OT: 20 strikeouts....and baseball ethics

[Blakeon18]

20 strikeouts for Scherzer last night in a close game...Nats won 3-2.

Suppose it was a blowout in the 9th inning.
Max has 20 strikeouts with 2 outs....has tied the standing record.
Batter hits a foul popup...an easy catch for someone. Does the player give real consideration
to intentionally not making a play on it...or klutzing around to make it look like he is trying to catch
it but can't handle it? It would give Max a chance to get 21 K's and set a new record?

I would say 'no'. It would bring heat on yourself...but more importantly it would bring unnecessary heat on Max for having a tainted record when he should be just basking in the glow of 20.
Might he think about for a sec or two as he gets under the pop-up? I bet he does....but then just does what he normally would do...catch it.

 

[bags27]

or suppose your favorite basketball player suffers a season-ending (and college-ending) injury just before setting the all-time team scoring record. As her coach, what do you do about that?

 

[Husky25]

Fascist. He should have thrown more ground balls. They are more Democratic.

 

[ThisJustIn]

... or suppose a popular football player is going for a record-breaking number of sacks. Do you, an opposing quarterback, ditch your offensive line and give up a sack?

 

[meyers7]

20 strikeouts for Scherzer last night in a close game...Nats won 3-2.

Suppose it was a blowout in the 9th inning.
Max has 20 strikeouts with 2 outs....has tied the standing record.
Batter hits a foul popup...an easy catch for someone. Does the player give real consideration
to intentionally not making a play on it...or klutzing around to make it look like he is trying to catch
it but can't handle it? It would give Max a chance to get 21 K's and set a new record?

I would say 'no'. It would bring heat on yourself...but more importantly it would bring unnecessary heat on Max for having a tainted record when he should be just basking in the glow of 20.
Might he think about for a sec or two as he gets under the pop-up? I bet he does....but then just does what he normally would do...catch it.

3-2 game? No, you take the out or lose your job.

 

[meyers7]

Fascist. He should have thrown more ground balls. They are more Democratic.

Bull.

 

[pinotbear]

or suppose your favorite basketball player suffers a season-ending (and college-ending) injury just before setting the all-time team scoring record. As her coach, what do you do about that?

As you likely know, the Sales situation involved a school record in an amateur sport, with no financial incentives involved. The situation involved that TJI refers to involved a league record in a professional sport, with large cash bonuses involved. The OP's hypothetical may not involve contractual financial incentive, but, would certainly have the potential for financial gain, whether through marketing, future contracts, etc..

So, they really aren't the same thing - other than the most innocuous of the situations involved the most brou-ha-ha and moral outrage.

 

[Alydar]

Or say who have a young and powerful left-side hitter on your major league team that plays in a stadium with a ridiculously close (but high) left field wall and an impossibly long right field wall? Do you build bullpens in right field, bringing the fences in about 90 feet to make it easy for him to hit home runs?

Or say you have an all-pro quarterback. Do you allow him to succeed on his own talent or do you feed him intercepted defensive calls through his helmet to further enhance his performance?

 

[Husky25]

Or say who have a young and powerful left-side hitter on your major league team that plays in a stadium with a ridiculously close (but high) left field wall and an impossibly long right field wall? Do you build bullpens in right field, bringing the fences in about 90 feet to make it easy for him to hit home runs?

Or say you have an all-pro quarterback. Do you allow him to succeed on his own talent or do you feed him intercepted defensive calls through his helmet to further enhance his performance?

Are you referring to the Original Yankee Stadium that was 296 feet down the Right Field Line, specifically designed to aid and abet a significant portion of 714 home runs?

Hey!! Walt!! WALT!!! WE'RE LIVING RENT FREE IN THEIR HEADS!!!!!

FYI, the bullpen are 23 feet wide and it is still 380 to straightaway right field.

 

[bags27]

As you likely know, the Sales situation involved a school record in an amateur sport, with no financial incentives involved. The situation involved that TJI refers to involved a league record in a professional sport, with large cash bonuses involved. The OP's hypothetical may not involve contractual financial incentive, but, would certainly have the potential for financial gain, whether through marketing, future contracts, etc..
So, they really aren't the same thing - other than the most innocuous of the situations involved the most brou-ha-ha and moral outrage.

= an accepted way of saying "I'm just joking". It's summer; be happy!

 

[Alydar]

Are you referring to the Original Yankee Stadium that was 296 feet down the Right Field Line, specifically designed to aid and abet a significant portion of 714 home runs?

Hey!! Walt!! WALT!!! WE'RE LIVING RENT FREE IN THEIR HEADS!!!!!

FYI, the bullpen are 23 feet wide and it is still 380 to straightaway right field.

LOL Nope. Nor am I referring to the 304 down the line at Fenway. The red sox put in those bull pens coincident to Williams arriving in Boston.

And unless you can compare the square footage of the fair ground in the original Yankee Stadium to the square footage of fair ground to Fenway just leave it alone. II spent good deal of my chidlhood listening to sox fans talk about the right field pole in the Stadium while ignoring the Pesky pole at Fenway.

And the topic was ethics.

 

[Adesmar123]

Fascist. He should have thrown more ground balls. They are more Democratic.

Actually I think ground balls are more Libertarian. Fly balls are more of an Oligarchy.

 

[Huskee11]

Fenway is a good park for lefthand hitters who can take it the other way but it is not easy to hit it out to right center, even though Ortiz makes it look that way. Yaz had numerous long flys to the warning track. The old Yankee Stadium was 344 to straightaway right. Good for Roger Maris!

Teams will cut their infields or water the baselines in ways that they see fit, and within reason I am ok with that. On the other hand, I can`t imagine anyone would think that intentionally dropping a foul fly is appropriate. If that seems inconsistent, so be it.

 

[Checkmate]

20 strikeouts for Scherzer last night in a close game...Nats won 3-2.

Suppose it was a blowout in the 9th inning.
Max has 20 strikeouts with 2 outs....has tied the standing record.
Batter hits a foul popup...an easy catch for someone. Does the player give real consideration
to intentionally not making a play on it...or klutzing around to make it look like he is trying to catch
it but can't handle it? It would give Max a chance to get 21 K's and set a new record?

I would say 'no'. It would bring heat on yourself...but more importantly it would bring unnecessary heat on Max for having a tainted record when he should be just basking in the glow of 20.
Might he think about for a sec or two as he gets under the pop-up? I bet he does....but then just does what he normally would do...catch it.

actually there was a pop -up in the 9th inning, and the first-baseman went 6 feet into the stands trying to catch it. The ball was 2 or 3 feet outside his range

 

[Husky25]

LOL Nope. Nor am I referring to the 304 down the line at Fenway. The red sox put in those bull pens coincident to Williams arriving in Boston.

And unless you can compare the square footage of the fair ground in the original Yankee Stadium to the square footage of fair ground to Fenway just leave it alone. II spent good deal of my chidlhood listening to sox fans talk about the right field pole in the Stadium while ignoring the Pesky pole at Fenway.

And the topic was ethics.

Spare me...

If you knew anything about the differences between Fenway and the original Yankee Stadium, you would know that ten feet to left of Pesky pole a home run has to travel 375 feet. 10 feet to the left of the original right field foul pole at YS, a home run had to travel about 298 feet. Fenway opened in 1912. Williams' rookie year was 1939. Yankee Stadium was quite literally built to suit Babe Ruth.

Still want to talk about ethics?

 

[Alydar]

Spare me...

If you knew anything about the differences between Fenway and the original Yankee Stadium, you would know that ten feet to left of Pesky pole a home run has to travel 375 feet. 10 feet to the left of the original right field foul pole at YS, a home run had to travel about 298 feet. Fenway opened in 1912. Williams' rookie year was 1939. Yankee Stadium was quite literally built to suit Babe Ruth.

Still want to talk about ethics?

10 feet to the left of the original right field foul pole at YS, a home run had to travel about 298 feet.

Simply not true. Go to the link I posted and check it out for yourself.

Ruth hit 367 home runs at Yankee Stadium and 347 away. Case closed. They didn't call the right field pole the Ruth Pole.
True about that 373. Fenway Park was deeper from the right field pole to staight right. But go a little further to straight away right field in Yankee Stadium and it was 407.

Red Sox fans only look like blind homers when they try and argue that fenway was even close to having the amount of fair territory as the original Yankee Stadium.

Fenway has that 420 notch in right center but it's 379 to straight away center. Where Fenway is 420, YS is 465 Center field? 379 at F, 460 at YS. Left center at fenway - 360. At YS - 457. Fenway also has the edge down the left field line, 310 to 301 at YS. But straight away left field at Fenway is about 340 compared to 402 in YS. Sure, there's a high wall but all that does is keep legitimate drives to left to a double or single while glorified popups go for homers. The sox always had 3 or 4 right handed hitters who would get 75-80% of their homers at home. I know sox fans have a love for Fenway but in reality it has always been a gimmick stadium that was only built the way it was because the owners couldn't buy the land they needed.

And you have yet to admit that the Sox shortened right field for Ted, whose power alley was to right center.

Here's a link to the stadium dimensions. http://andrewclem.com/Baseball/Diag/YankeeStadium1937.gif And if you look down the right field line at YS you'll see that after the foul pole the field also quickly got a lot deeper . Maybe not quite as much as at Fenway but still quite a bit. But then sox fans never seem to have much to say about that. They only want to talk about that right field corner. LOL

Having a stadium that essentially had no left center field meant that the Red Sox could put a dead footed Yastrzemski in left field because he could play 75 feet behind short and if a ball went over his head he only had to turn around and play the bounce off the wall. If Carl had had to play left field in a real stadium there would have been a record for inside the park home runs.

I was sick when, like the Sox, the Yankees put bull pens into what was once fair territory. And today's Yankee stadium is a home run derby field as MLB has embraced the drama othe long ball. Just one of many reasons I don't follow MLB much anymore.

IMO it's fair to say that there isn't much in the way of ethical high ground in any of professional sports.

 

[Husky25]

Since you can't read numbers (unless it furthers your cause), I'll spell it out for you. The right field bullpens at Fenway are t-w-e-n-t-y-t-h-r-e-e feet wide. Perspective? Similar portions of CitiField's outfield wall have been brought in up to 35 feet to make it "fair."

Yes Fenway is confined by the neighborhood surrounding it. But you dimensions are a bit off (by the way, I like Andrew Clem's site. I go there before I visit a new ballpark and I like comparing the different configurations). Left-center field is 379...then a 37 foot wall. Straightaway center is 390. Deep Center field is 420 flanked by a 37 foot wall on the left and a 17 foot wall on the right. It was also built in an era when triples and inside-the-parkers were far more prevalent than hitting it over the wall. The ball was wasn't wound so tight until the early 20's...when Babe Ruth was in his prime.

Babe hit 259 homeruns at Yankee Stadium. He hit 49 at Fenway, but the park he hit the second most homeruns was at the Polo Grounds (85), which had a 278 foot RF foul pole before going to 447 in the corner. Bottom line is that the Babe was a dead pull hitter and an entire venue was literally built to suit him.

 

[cabbie191]

or suppose your favorite basketball player suffers a season-ending (and college-ending) injury just before setting the all-time team scoring record. As her coach, what do you do about that?

It's a good point you make but in my opinion there is a distinction between breaking a team or school record versus setting a record for the entire sport.

 

[Huskee11]

Since you can't read numbers (unless it furthers your cause), I'll spell it out for you. The right field bullpens at Fenway are t-w-e-n-t-y-t-h-r-e-e feet wide. Perspective? Similar portions of CitiField's outfield wall have been brought in up to 35 feet to make it "fair."

Yes Fenway is confined by the neighborhood surrounding it. But you dimensions are a bit off (by the way, I like Andrew Clem's site. I go there before I visit a new ballpark and I like comparing the different configurations). Left-center field is 379...then a 37 foot wall. Straightaway center is 390. Deep Center field is 420 flanked by a 37 foot wall on the left and a 17 foot wall on the right. It was also built in an era when triples and inside-the-parkers were far more prevalent than hitting it over the wall. The ball was wasn't wound so tight until the early 20's...when Babe Ruth was in his prime.

Babe hit 259 homeruns at Yankee Stadium. He hit 49 at Fenway, but the park he hit the second most homeruns was at the Polo Grounds (85), which had a 278 foot RF foul pole before going to 447 in the corner. Bottom line is that the Babe was a dead pull hitter and an entire venue was literally built to suit him.

Interesting point about ballparks being built to conform to the surrounding neighborhoods. That probably explains the Polo Grounds, which as I recall was 475 to dead center but less than 300 down both lines. Also re your stat about Babe Ruth`s 85 home runs at Polo Grounds - never knew that, I didn`t realize that is where the Yankees played before Yankee Stadium was built.

 

[August_West]

20 strikeouts for Scherzer last night in a close game...Nats won 3-2.

Suppose it was a blowout in the 9th inning.
Max has 20 strikeouts with 2 outs....has tied the standing record.
Batter hits a foul popup...an easy catch for someone. Does the player give real consideration
to intentionally not making a play on it...or klutzing around to make it look like he is trying to catch
it but can't handle it? It would give Max a chance to get 21 K's and set a new record?

I would say 'no'. It would bring heat on yourself...but more importantly it would bring unnecessary heat on Max for having a tainted record when he should be just basking in the glow of 20.
Might he think about for a sec or two as he gets under the pop-up? I bet he does....but then just does what he normally would do...catch it.

There have been 100's of two out rally's back from Blowouts in the the history of baseball. Unlike other sports that are on a clock, there is ALWAYS a chance to win the game in Baseball until the last out is made. You dont ever screw with that no matter how unlikely. "Clock" sports can't boast that. At a certain point a lead is mathematically impossible to overcome.

Its really not even about heat on yourself or heat on the record holder (both which would be true). Its about winning. As soon as its not about winning baseball becomes <ahem> womens college basketball. (yeah after all these years the sales issue, while compassionate, still sits poorly with me viewed through a competitive sports lens.)