OOTP blacklists Bonds & McGwire?

[Brad K]

I wonder if pitchers taking steroids helped the batters on the occasions when the batters made good contact. The faster a ball comes in the faster it goes out.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by uruguru

It always cracks me up how apologists used to claim that steroids didn't help you hit home runs. We have had 100 years of post-deadball era baseball and over half of the top 20 single-season HR totals occurred in just a tiny 5-year window, during which we know that players were juicing.

It was so ridiculous that Sosa pulled this amazing hat trick of breaking Maris' record THREE times without being the home run champion in any of those years.

Juiced baseballs probably played a major role in HR totals as well. More then just PED's lead to the records being shattered.

[whizkid1950]

agreed

[bailey]

Why isn't "Tommy John" surgery considered a form of cheating? The player is altered in an unnatural way and is often stronger than before surgery.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by bailey

Why isn't "Tommy John" surgery considered a form of cheating? The player is altered in an unnatural way and is often stronger than before surgery.

Or how about those that take the field with unnatural, artificial vision enhancers. They are removable, so wear them to read or drive at night - but not to gain an unfair competitive advantage!

Man, this thread has gone off-topic. I have not seen a problem with historic leaderboards not presenting correctly. That was the topic, no?

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

Or how about those that take the field with unnatural, artificial vision enhancers. They are removable, so wear them to read or drive at night - but not to gain an unfair competitive advantage!

Man, this thread has gone off-topic. I have not seen a problem with historic leaderboards not presenting correctly. That was the topic, no?

I think the actual topic of the the thread was a BNN Report(news section) that did not feature Bonds and McGwire.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by David Watts

I think the actual topic of the the thread was a BNN Report(news section) that did not feature Bonds and McGwire.

That's tougher to replicate as one is at the mercy of the BBN News Story timing. But if it's a bug report, put it there. Check other news stories for incorrect data pulls in the same save. Review one's own news story histories for similar instances, so if it is a bad data pull, a developer can see that and tag it as an issue.

If it's a steroid debate thread poeple want, go to off-game discussions. It buries the point which ought to be technical in nature related to news stories. That gets buried with all the other unrelated hot takes on PEDs.

[Ty Cobb]

Cheaters should be banned for life and expunged from the records IMHFO.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

That's tougher to replicate as one is at the mercy of the BBN News Story timing. But if it's a bug report, put it there. Check other news stories for incorrect data pulls in the same save. Review one's own news story histories for similar instances, so if it is a bad data pull, a developer can see that and tag it as an issue.

If it's a steroid debate thread poeple want, go to off-game discussions. It buries the point which ought to be technical in nature related to news stories. That gets buried with all the other unrelated hot takes on PEDs.

Nah, I wanted to be a forum patrol boy, but they turned me down, so now it's all about anarchy and bedlam. I will not be oppressed by silly rules of decorum. I will post willy nilly and wherever I please. Roast Beef.

[LansdowneSt]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Nah, I wanted to be a forum patrol boy, but they turned me down, so now it's all about anarchy and bedlam. I will not be oppressed by silly rules of decorum. I will post willy nilly and wherever I please. Roast Beef.

I surrender. Enjoy. Below is your statement as rephrased as if found in the King James Bible, as a Shakespeare soliloquy and as a haiku...

Verily, I yearned to serve as a vigilant guardian in the halls of discourse, yet they cast me aside, denying my desire to patrol the forum's domain. Henceforth, I embrace chaos and pandemonium. I shall not bow to the shackles of frivolous protocols and customary order. With fervor, I shall scatter my words without restraint, across vast expanses of cyberspace. Behold, I declare my rebellion: "Roast Beef!"

Alas! A forum patrol boy's fate denied,
Rejected, thwarted, my desire to serve.
Henceforth, anarchy and bedlam be my guide,
Defying rules of decorum, I shall swerve.
No longer bound by decorous decree,
I'll post at will, wherever my heart's pleased.
Roast Beef, my proclamation, bold and free,
In this realm of chaos, I find my ease.

Denied forum role,
Anarchy now my solace,
Roast Beef, my revolt.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

I surrender. Enjoy. Below is your statement as rephrased as if found in the King James Bible, as a Shakespeare soliloquy and as a haiku...

Verily, I yearned to serve as a vigilant guardian in the halls of discourse, yet they cast me aside, denying my desire to patrol the forum's domain. Henceforth, I embrace chaos and pandemonium. I shall not bow to the shackles of frivolous protocols and customary order. With fervor, I shall scatter my words without restraint, across vast expanses of cyberspace. Behold, I declare my rebellion: "Roast Beef!"

Alas! A forum patrol boy's fate denied,
Rejected, thwarted, my desire to serve.
Henceforth, anarchy and bedlam be my guide,
Defying rules of decorum, I shall swerve.
No longer bound by decorous decree,
I'll post at will, wherever my heart's pleased.
Roast Beef, my proclamation, bold and free,
In this realm of chaos, I find my ease.

Denied forum role,
Anarchy now my solace,
Roast Beef, my revolt.

You just made my day. Thank you.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Ty Cobb

Cheaters should be banned for life and expunged from the records IMHFO.

Norm Cash admitted to corked bats. I suppose that isn't bad enough cheating to remove him from BR.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by LansdowneSt

Man, this thread has gone off-topic. I have not seen a problem with historic leaderboards not presenting correctly. That was the topic, no?

The topic of a thread is what the posters decide it should be. The original topic wore out quickly and the posters moved to related topics. The other possibility was the thread would die after few posts.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by bailey

Why isn't "Tommy John" surgery considered a form of cheating? The player is altered in an unnatural way and is often stronger than before surgery.

Like

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Norm Cash admitted to corked bats. I suppose that isn't bad enough cheating to remove him from BR.

Norm Cash also used a table leg in a at bat against Nolan Ryan.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Norm Cash also used a table leg in a at bat against Nolan Ryan.

Yea, that was funny.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Ty Cobb

Cheaters should be banned for life and expunged from the records IMHFO.

Ty Cobb almost certainly bet on baseball and likely bet on his own team to lose. I’m OK with expunging Bonds and McGwire if we also expunge the worst sorts of cheaters, those who fix games or come so close to fixing games that it’s hard to tell immediately what was fixed and what was not.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

likely bet on his own team to lose

As much as I detest the steroid cheats, this is another level worse. Anyone proven to throw games or bet on their team to lose (which implies throwing games) should receive a permanent ban from the sport. This is the behavior that baseball's anti-gambling rule was supposed to address and we've gone from temporarily banning Willie Mays for a post-retirement association with a casino to MLB allowing Youtubers to slather DraftKings promos all over their MLB content.

My internal rankings of offenses and the kind of punishments I would inflict:

The worst: fixing/throwing games, betting to lose. Immediate and permanent lifetime ban, imo.

Next worst: cheating/breaking rules to gain a competitive advantage over other players and teams, even if turns out that advantage is illusory (spitballs, corking bats, entire PED era, using technology to steal signs - banging trash cans, pitchers using sticky stuff, etc). Shorter bans that can become permanent with repeated offenses.

Least worst: Not cheating or throwing games, but associations or activities that could create that impression (i.e. betting on your team to win). Temporary bans until activity is ended.

I am an Astros fan and I would have absolutely given the team a death penalty for the trash can banging cheating. That was incredibly egregious, imo. Basically released all of the players on the team while this cheating was happening to free agency with the caveat that they could not resign with the Astros.

[Syd Thrift]

Nah, betting on your team to win is 100% as bad as betting on them to lose unless you can demonstrate that the person in question literally bet on the team to win in 100% of games they played/managed/etc. In Pete Rose’s case there’s some data that he either avoided betting when I think it was Mario Soto was out but that’s so close to “he preferred to use Soto when he was betting on the game” that it’s indistinguishable in my book, and that’s exactly why betting on your team to win isn’t really any better.

[uruguru]

No, it's not.

Look, if I am playing a tennis match with a friend, it makes a hell of a difference if I am betting him $20 on whether I win vs whether I lose. Betting to win increases the competitive urge, literally raising the stakes, whereas betting to lose makes a travesty of the entire exercise.

I get it. I really do. What Pete Rose did was, at the time, the worst thing that a player had done for decades, so everyone came down really hard on him for it. And when Giamatti died, a lot of people wanted to blame Rose for that, too. So for a long time, fans rightly held up Rose's behavior as the worst thing a player could do to the game.

Since then, however, what Rose did pales in comparison to the rampant and overt cheating by players in the 90s (PEDs), the 2017 Astros (trash can), and pitchers in the 2010s (sticky).

But for whatever reason, people who vilified Rose for so long just can't step back and see the forest now. And what's worse, these are often the same people who will bend over backwards to defend the PED cheats. It's madness, imo.

That's all I'm going to say on this issue.