Stupid Crap Baseball Players Say or Do

[odessasteps]

Something something legitimate businessman

[piranesi]

I mean Lebron James's face is all over DraftKings ads. Why shouldn't everybody be gambling. It's obviously an incredibly healthy thing for all of society to be basing our lives around. Kevin Hart wouldn't lie to us about how great gambling is would he?

Let me consult with the people at the "Oddsmakers.net presents the Baseball Hall of Fame" in Gamblegobble.com presents Cooperstown, NY and find out.

 

 

 

 

They say it's fine.

[BobbyWhioux]

5 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

I did get to use Eddie Cicotte in the Immaculate Grid today because of the Ohtani translator news (a bunch of other people also used it, so I just conceded trying to get a low rarity score on IG today)

now that MLB leadership is apparently cool with gambling and associating with bookies it is time for Cicotte to get his posthumous due and be remembered for being the first [white] master of the knuckleball instead of for The Other Thing.

[Brian Fowler]

I'm all for mocking sports leagues for getting in bed with sportsbooks* generally speaking, but it is worth pointing out this apparently involved an illegal book of some sort.

*I'm actually perfectly okay with legalized sports gambling as well. But dear fucking God do I hate commercials and sponsored content for sports books 

[Travis Sheldon]

If they're going to nail Ohtani I'd rather they do it early in his Dodgers tenure, that way I don't get attached to him.

I don't think he will go down since he's one of the biggest stars of today and we all know that commissioners will do anything to cover up a BIG scandal.

[odessasteps]

Maybe Ohtani can play minor league basketball for a year. 

[RIPPA]

Not that I think it would happen but if he is gonna get parked for a year, this is the year to do so

[BobbyWhioux]

I don’t want Ohtani to be guilty of anything serious but I do want baseball’s getting in bed with gambling to absolutely blow up in its face and there would be no bigger explosion than having to suspend Ohtani for gambling 

Outside of literally, like, Black Sox 2.0

[Kevin Wilson]

Slightly off topic but to me its been beyond crazy seeing all the major leagues go from "betting is bad, absolutely not" to sponsoring gambling, talking about the lines and having players advertise for gambling sites. They couldn't prevent it from being legalized in some states but there is a big difference between "its legal" and "its legal and now you can bet in the stadium during the game with ads on how to do so." It all happened so much faster than I expected.

[piranesi]

I don’t think there is a single industry that is still capable of functioning today without becoming a criminal enterprise on some level so we should probably get used to all this. There are no more boundaries. 

[TimLivingston]

The MLB investigation is official. This is gonna be something else. 

[Brian Fowler]

I don't think, at least in the major money sports leagues, a Black Sox scandal is likely to ever happen again. The players, especially the ones that are good enough to be counted on to consistently effect the outcome of games, make too goddamn much money to need the extra cash or risk the rest of their 9 figure deal getting cancelled.

No, the real issue is the people who are just as important but make low to mid six figures. The ones that certainly make a good living but not "ten good years and my family have generational wealth now" money. The ones that have a job that's impossible to do and constantly being called crooked when they probably aren't. The ones that dictate the strike zone, call fouls or not, throw the pass interference flag...

[odessasteps]

Plus, not every major league level player is making retirement money. One middle reliever can Groove a home run pitch to throw a game. One goalie can give up a penalty shot/kick. Any FG kicker can miss a chip shot. 

[BobbyWhioux]

37 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

I don't think, at least in the major money sports leagues, a Black Sox scandal is likely to ever happen again. The players, especially the ones that are good enough to be counted on to consistently effect the outcome of games, make too goddamn much money to need the extra cash or risk the rest of their 9 figure deal getting cancelled.

No, the real issue is the people who are just as important but make low to mid six figures. The ones that certainly make a good living but not "ten good years and my family have generational wealth now" money. The ones that have a job that's impossible to do and constantly being called crooked when they probably aren't. The ones that dictate the strike zone, call fouls or not, throw the pass interference flag...

Hence the breakneck speed with which the NBA moved to convince us establish that Lee Harvey Oswald Tim Donaghy Acted Alone.

No sport would survive a crooked ref scandal.

[BobbyWhioux]

2 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

Slightly off topic but to me its been beyond crazy seeing all the major leagues go from "betting is bad, absolutely not" to sponsoring gambling, talking about the lines and having players advertise for gambling sites. They couldn't prevent it from being legalized in some states but there is a big difference between "its legal" and "its legal and now you can bet in the stadium during the game with ads on how to do so." It all happened so much faster than I expected.

Now that the 1910s-1920s are firmly gone from living memory, a lot of people sure are dead set on forgetting a lot of the lessons learned the hard way during those years. Baseball is in prime position to follow suit.

[Tabe]

1 hour ago, BobbyWhioux said:

Hence the breakneck speed with which the NBA moved to convince us establish that Lee Harvey Oswald Tim Donaghy Acted Alone.

No sport would survive a crooked ref scandal.

I guarantee you he was not alone. But you already think that way, too. 

And it wouldn't shock me if Eric Gregg was on the take during the Livan game. 

[BobbyWhioux]

30 minutes ago, Tabe said:

I guarantee you he was not alone. But you already think that way, too. 

And it wouldn't shock me if Eric Gregg was on the take during the Livan game. 

funny, even as cynical as I am I never thought Eric Gregg was doing anything more than punishing the Braves for some perceived disrespect of his authority.

standard bad umpire shit.

or in this context, the perfect alibi.
 

[Tabe]

1 hour ago, BobbyWhioux said:

funny, even as cynical as I am I never thought Eric Gregg was doing anything more than punishing the Braves for some perceived disrespect of his authority.

standard bad umpire shit.

or in this context, the perfect alibi.
 

Sure, that's a good explanation. But if you found out he was paid off, would you be all THAT surprised given how one-sided and blatant his favoritism was? 

[Brian Fowler]

That's the problem right there: can we really tell the difference between a bad ref, a ref with a vendetta against a team, and one on the take/maximizing his own bets?

[lostinube]

Or they got orders from above for a preferred outcome.

All I know is that this story went warp speed from "something is fishy" to "ban him for life" and/or "he has MJ-esque gambling addiction." Were that many people waiting for him to stumble? If he were still on a bad Angels team would people be charging into this story with their knives out?

[BobbyWhioux]

it would almost be preferable if we found out Angel Hernandez was fixing games all this time instead of actually legitimately being this incompetent.

[Brian Fowler]

6 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Plus, not every major league level player is making retirement money. One middle reliever can Groove a home run pitch to throw a game. One goalie can give up a penalty shot/kick. Any FG kicker can miss a chip shot. 

This is somewhat true, but the minimum salaries in the NFL and MLB start at over 700k, and the NBA is now over a million. While refs/umps/etc tend to top out at between $300-500k.

And a ref is pretty much guaranteed to have a good shot at effecting the outcome of at least a close game pretty much every time.

I just think the smart crooked money is in buying them, not the players. (The players, meanwhile, can keep creating their own gambling scandals by using official league and team partners to bet money at the sportsbook built into their stadium.)

[Brian Fowler]

1 minute ago, BobbyWhioux said:

it would almost be preferable if we found out Angel Hernandez was fixing games all this time instead of actually legitimately being this incompetent.

It would help explain how the DVDVR has as many playoff appearance as the Ohtani Angels, and as many playoff wins as the Angels in the entire Mike Trout era.

[odessasteps]

There are plenty of stories nowadays about fishy games in the lower levels of sports around the world, just not the major leagues. If Asian betting syndicates can make their money fixing third tier Canadian or Malaysian soccer, which goes almost everyone’s radar but Declan Hill and company, why try and fix the Premier League or nfl? 

[sabremike]

16 hours ago, odessasteps said:

There are plenty of stories nowadays about fishy games in the lower levels of sports around the world, just not the major leagues. If Asian betting syndicates can make their money fixing third tier Canadian or Malaysian soccer, which goes almost everyone’s radar but Declan Hill and company, why try and fix the Premier League or nfl? 

Hill's book "The Fix" is one I'd call a must read.