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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:18
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Oh, and it's pretty bizarre that somebody who saw presumably lots of players take greenies without a fuss would bam about steroids impacting records.
I think the game should be cleaned up. The congress is doing its part by giving baseball an excuse to get its act together. The commissioner is doing his part by ramming this thing down the union's throat, all the while blaming potential action by the congress.
quote:
American sports places too much emphasis on stats and records IMHO, if you are amonst the best at a given time and won championships then thats enough.
Although stats are creeping into British sports we rarely use them to decide who the 'best' is, thats where judgement comes in. |
I thought it would have been obvious to you that Americans love stats. Business. Economics. Opinion polls. Demographics. Always have.
Baseball has always been mostly about stats. Records matter a great deal in this game, although it is a little hard to compare among generations.
Last edited by DanS on 03-05-2005 at 05:14
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:18
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Imran, discussing things it with you is very painful. I said a commissioner was needed to keep the sport honest; and you said, no, that would be communism to appoint a commissioner, who is in effect, a CEO of the private business that was independent of ownership. I said there was a difference between keeping a sport honest and keeping a business honest. If the business cheats you can sue the business. One cannot sue a sport when the players cheat. You said that you can sue baseball if they commit fraud. But now you agree that you cannot sue baseball when a player cheats.
So we come full circle, do we not? We need a commissioner, independent of the owners and players, to keep the sport honest precisely because no one outside the sport can sue when the players cheat. The harm done by cheating is not just to other teams, but to the public itself because baseball is a sport.
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Imran Siddiqui
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The Potterverse
Jan 1970
time: 00:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Imran, discussing things it with you is very painful. I said a commissioner was needed to keep the sport honest; and you said, no, that would be communism to appoint a commissioner, who is in effect, a CEO of the private business that was independent of ownership. I said there was a difference between keeping a sport honest and keeping a business honest. If the business cheats you can sue the business. One cannot sue a sport when the players cheat. You said that you can sue baseball if they commit fraud. But now you agree that you cannot sue baseball when a player cheats.
So we come full circle, do we not? We need a commissioner, independent of the owners and players, to keep the sport honest precisely because no one outside the sport can sue when the players cheat. The harm done by cheating is not just to other teams, but to the public itself because baseball is a sport. |
No, discussing things with YOU is very painful. There is a reason why many people refer to it as the "Nedaverse". You don't live on this planet.
If the business cheats, you can sue the business, only if they are engaged in some fraud that has direct financial impact on you. You can also sue a sport if they engage in fraud that impacts you.
You can't sue the sport when the players do something illegal (they didn't cheat, btw), just like you can't sue a business when the employees do cocaine or speed in order to stay up to do work on time (and don't mess up).
Your response is to engage in GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP of a private business. All sport is is a business. If people want to assign other values onto it, they can, but in the end, it's a business. And there is no 'harm' to the public. What, they don't believe the records? Boo hoo, that's not a harm.
If a bunch of employees in a company do cocaine, you can't sue the company unless the employees mess up and it results in financial loss. Do I need to say it again? You CAN'T SUE THE BUSINESS. Do you suggest Congress assign the CEO for that business to engage in stricter drug testing?
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:18
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And, you said I had it wrong about Bowie Kuhn, Imran. As always, the Nedaverse is where its at:
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stori...1530055,00.html
Kuhn busts Finley: Commissioner fights A's owner for selling three stars for cash
By Dave Newhouse - STAFF WRITER
THE OAKLAND A's were involved in an earthquake of another kind 13 years before the Loma Prieta earthquake interrupted the 1989 World Series.
The epicenter was Oakland, and at the center of the epicenter was Charles O. Finley.
The first tremor occurred June 15, 1976. Finley, determined to break up his A's dynasty, made three seismic transactions that day.
He sold outfielder Joe Rudi and relief pitcher Rollie Fingers to the Boston Red Sox for $1 million apiece, and pitcher Vida Blue to the New York Yankees for $1.5 million.
For Rudi and Fingers, they moved 50 feet to the visitors clubhouse because the Red Sox were in town.
"Steve Vucinich was then working on the other side," Rudi said of the A's longtime equipment manager. "He died all my white shoes black. I still have them."
But even though Rudi and Fingers wore Red Sox uniforms they didn't play against the A's that week.
Advertisement
That's because an aftershock rippled through baseball on June 18 when commissioner Bowie Kuhn nullified all three deals.
"Shorn of much of its finest talent in exchange for cash," Kuhn explained at the time, "the Oakland club, which has been a divisional champion for the last five years, has little chance to compete effectively in its division."
Kuhn believed Finley's dismantling of the A's would destroy baseball in Oakland. Finley countered that there had been numerous cash transactions in baseball without any commissioner interference.
And that's when Finley referred to Kuhn as "the village idiot" before seeking a court injunction against the commissioner.
For the next two weeks, although Rudi, Fingers and Blue were once again Oakland property, they didn't play for the A's as Finley legally battled Kuhn to have his three transactions re-instated. It didn't work.
"It was really a tumultuous time," Rudi said from his home in Baker City, Ore. "All of'76 was up in the air because free agency had started the year before. Twelve A's were free agents. We all sent (contract) offers back to Finley. He never answered. I was hoping to go (to Boston) because the A's were done. Finley already had traded Reggie Jackson and Kenny Holtzman."
When Rudi, Fingers and Blue walked back in the Oakland clubhouse that week, two of their teammates looked at each other.
"I bet Abner Doubleday is turning over in his grave," Don Baylor said to Billy Williams.
But why didn't Rudi and Fingers see action against the A's in'76?
"(Red Sox manager) Darrell Johnson didn't play us, seeing we were out of sorts," Rudi said. "I ran wind sprints before the game, and my equilibrium was bad. It was very emotional for me. I had spent 13 years in the A's organization."
The A's were contending again in'76 when Kuhn killed the deals. The A's then folded as Finley, in effect, benched three of his best players.
"Finally on a Sunday day game," Rudi said, "it was just before the first pitch and all of the A's players were sitting in their street clothes. They voted not to play unless we played. So Charlie gave in."
Rudi moved on to the California Angels in 1977. Fingers signed with the San Diego Padres. Blue returned for one more year before being traded to the San Francisco Giants.
"Charlie totally duped Vida into signing before selling him," Rudi said. "That's how Charlie was. It was such a mess. Charlie alienated everyone. The Coliseum didn't want to have anything to do with him."
A number of A's left after the 1976 season. Campy Campaneris signed with Texas. Gene Tenace followed Fingers to San Diego. Baylor joined Rudi in Anaheim. Sal Bando departed for Milwaukee.
Rudi did wear black shoes with the Red Sox in 1981 before ending his career in Oakland the next year, with the A's now owned by the Haas family.
"They were wonderful people," Rudi said.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:18
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"Just a year before the 1976 trade deadline, Finley had led a group of dissident owners in trying to get Kuhn fired. Among the owners in that group — George Steinbrenner, who had recently been banned from day-to-day involvement with his team by Kuhn for his Watergate-related conviction. If Kuhn was inclined to look at any Finley moves with a jaundiced eye — and he was — the involvement of Steinbrenner was “like waving a red flag” in front of the commissioner, Heylar writes."
http://sports.intertext.com/archives/000714.html
"PLAYBOY: But getting back to the point, under your helmsmanship, the most storied team in baseball history fell apart. During those seventeen years, you worked with four commissioners, were fined six times for a total of three hundred fifty thousand dollars, were suspended twice and reprimanded once.
STEINBRENER: First of all, remember that Bowie Kuhn was the commissioner who fined me many of those times. Holier-than-thou, sanctimonious Bowie Kuhn -- the epitome of integrity! Bowie Kuhn was looking for reasons to get me.
PLAYBOY: Why would he do that?
STEINBRENER: I don't know. I mean, Bowie and I never really got along. He wasn't my kind of guy. We just never had a relationship.
Take the pine-tar incident in 1983, which was the heaviest fine, OK? George Brett comes up to bat for the Kansas City Royals in a crucial game and hits a home run against us. But in violation of the baseball rules, he has pine tar smeared too far up his bat. An umpire, trying to do his job, measures the bat, finds it illegal and disallows the home run; there's a rule in the rule book and it was broken, right? So the umpire's ruling should stand. But baseball, in its infinite wisdom, interferes. [Former American League president] Lee MacPhail comes out and says, "Well, I don't think the pine tar hurts or changes the flight of the ball, so I'm going to overrule it." So I got heated and issued a statement that said, "Maybe he ought to buy a house in Kansas City, if that's the way he feels." Then the commissioner calls me up and -- boom! -- we have a hearing.
PLAYBOY: Which resulted in a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar fine.
STEINBRENER: For speaking out. But why shouldn't I speak out? Don't you speak out in this country?
PLAYBOY: Sure, but isn't some decorum incumbent upon a team owner?
STEINBRENER: No, I don't think so. Nobody is going to sit back and not say anything just because he's bought into a league where the commissioner has such absolute power. But let me tell you where this almighty power came from: It came into being with Judge [Kenesaw Mountain] Landis, the first commissioner, who was brought in during the Black Sox scandal in 1919. The commissioner was given the power to do anything that's "in the best interest of baseball." And that's a pretty ill-defined term.
PLAYBOY: It is very broad.
STEINBRENER: It's without definition! Is it in the best interest of baseball to sell beer in the ninth inning? Probably not. The rule has got to be more clearly defined. And then some process should be set up where the judge is not also the appeals judge.
PLAYBOY: Another incident that caught the eye of the press was your alleged fight in an elevator in Los Angeles in 1981. What actually happened?
STEINBRENER: What happened? My lawyers have that information. On their advice, I have never talked about it, and I don't intend to. Things were done, settlements were made, and that's all there is to it. I'm not going to talk about it.
PLAYBOY: Were you telling the truth to the press at the time?
STEINBRENER: I won't talk about it. [Pauses] Absolutely. Absolutely.
PLAYBOY: There were kids in the elevator, right?
STEINBRENER: There were.
PLAYBOY: They were Dodgers fans.
STEINBRENER: They were. And my attorneys have that. That's long buried.
PLAYBOY: You hit somebody?
STEINBRENER: I hit a number of times, yes. That's all I'm going to say.
PLAYBOY: How did you react when people said, "George punched an elevator wall"?
STEINBRENER: [Sarcastically] Ahhh! I'm sure I'm going to do that. Right. I don't care what people say, you know. They can say what they want.
PLAYBOY: Until now, perhaps the most well-known blemish on your record was your connection to Watergate. After your conviction for making an illegal contribution to Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign, Kuhn suspended you for two years. How did that sit with you?
STEINBRENER: There are things that have never come out on Watergate that someday will come out.
PLAYBOY: Can you say what things?
STEINBRENER: Deep things. No, I can't say, but they would throw an entirely different light on it.
PLAYBOY: Did you commit a crime?
STEINBRENER: You commit a crime when you make an illegal contribution.
PLAYBOY: And you made an illegal contribution?
STEINBRENER: Well, I was... I was one of many. I won't even dwell on it. It was an old law, an antiquated law. I got some very poor advice. And that's all I'm going to say.
PLAYBOY: You're a patriotic man. How did it feel to have your right to vote taken away?
STEINBRENER: It didn't feel good. It was a devastation to me, because I love my country so much, and no one is as patriotic -- almost to the point of corniness -- as I am. That's why I'm so respectful that President Reagan gave me a pardon."
http://www.playboy.com/features/fea...nbrener/04.html
"Under Kuhn, the major leagues endured a 57-day players' strike in 1981. Also during his tenure Major League Baseball grew from 20 to 26 teams and attendance increased from 23 million fans in 1968 to 45.5 million in 1983. However, five National League owners were unalterably disaffected. Lingering unhappiness with the costly 1981 strike and its aftermath was a burden. A proposal for more equitable sharing of broadcasting revenues among rich and poor clubs was a new and divisive problem. There were renewed calls for restructuring, magnates now said they wanted a chief executive officer-a real corporate CEO with the business skills to guide them through the complexities of baseball in the contemporary world.
In the voting, the NL dissidents held firm. In addition there were 3 inconsequential "no" votes among AL owners. With only 18 out of 26 owners on his side-a 69 percent approval rating-Kuhn failed to get the necessary 3-quarters majority in each league for another term. Kuhn overstayed his term by a year until Peter V. Ueberroth, head of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, was unanimously elected to a five-year term in October 1984. Kuhn left office on September 30, 1984 serving 15 years as Commissioner is the 2nd longest tenure to Kenesaw Mountain Landis' 23 years. "
http://www.sportsecyclopedia.com/ml...975#post3771330
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03-05-2005 03:31
for him not taking himself too seriously.
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