He told a story of Gil Hodges telling Koosman to put shoe polish on a ball that landed in the dugout, in order to get a "hit-by-pitch" awarded. It worked. That was during the WORLD SERIES!
The story was told as a funny, old anecdote. It WAS a funny old anecdote.
How is proactively doctoring a baseball (at the direction of a mangager, no less) not cheating? Of course it's cheating.
If anyone can distinguish that form of cheating from using steroids, please include it in the comments. If anything, steroids were only marginally illegal until just recently. Doctoring a baseball to deceive an umpire was JUST PLAIN WRONG.
No one talks about removing the Mets '69 Series win from the record books. That would be ridiculous. It was just something that happened when guys got competitive, trying to win a game.
Isn't that (and steroid use) better than a bunch of indifferent loafers playing for a paycheck? Think the NBA (and the Knicks).
People like to talk about how good Tim Duncan is. He is quite good. However, the reason the Spurs have been competing for a championship every year for a decade is simple:
THEY ARE ALL TRYING TO WIN A CHAMPIOSHIP.
They are the only team for whom that is true all the time. Say what you will about Bruce Bowen, but he is certainly trying! Same for Rip Hamilton, by the way.
Dirty? Maybe. Trying? ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY.
In baseball, EVERYONE is trying. When someone doesn't (Reyes) they catch hell.
Steroids and shoe-polishing baseballs and vaseline balls are just an extension of trying.
Give me a bunch of cheating, trying, steroid using, ball doctoring players on my team over a bunch of going through the motions, happy to have a job, ethics first players. Every day of the week.
Sports is one place in my life where entertainment trumps ethics.
Win. Entertain me. Give me meaningful games in September (or December or April).
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