Rock Bottoms and Gap Tooth can suck it!

Marietta Braves are champions and the Atlanta FAILcons are still losers!

Goooooooo Braaaaaaaaaaves!

F Rob Manfred and Tony Clark.

Why the Astros were even allowed to play in the postseason is beyond me.

I know the Astros fans won't like my opinion but there's no denying what they did. There are at least three players still on the Astros roster, who were on the cheating team. The Astros should be banned from postseason play until every member of the cheating team has been replaced.

While I would have liked to see the Braves take the championship on Sunday night on their home field, I do derive a measure of satisfaction, shutting out the Astros on their home field, seven to zip. They earned the loss and they earned being embarrassed in front of their fans.

I don't care much about baseball any more, especially now that MLB is changing names of teams and all that ridiculous horse shit. I watch the games because my wife is a big fan of the Braves. I care about the game only because she cares about it. She's happy at the Braves' win, so I'm happy.

Integrity matters, and until every single person who was on the cheating team is gone from that organization, the Astros have no integrity.

Congratulations to the Braves, not one of my top-5 teams I pull for but, after this season's shenanigans by MLB, there isn't a better team to have won it all. Nice bit of F-U.

Fried was dealing, good to see a starting pitcher do his thing, after seeing this new-wave of 'openers' start games and that homer Soler hit, my god! He just obliterated it, crushed it, name your adjective and dance all the way around.

quote:

Originally posted by Shaql:
No. Baseball purists, such as KevinCW, believe that the DH is an abomination to the game of baseball. I do too.

Thus, any organization or people who support the DH rule are called communists. And they are!

Agreed, the DH is pure communism, and they are trying to sap and impurify our vital bodily fluids. But it looks like all of baseball may be stuck with it next year.

The Astros got forced into the AL when the previous owner wanted to sell. MLB wanted to even out the number of teams in the various divisions of both leagues and made a league switch a condition to approve the sale. More communism, and more literal communism in this case.

That said, I was still rooting for the Astros. But their bats went cold for the World Series. The Braves had good to very good pitching work from their pitchers, but good pitching isn't normally enough to beat the Astro's hitting lineup. But they did not bat well in the series.

I'll give credit to the Braves, which is another team I have some affinity for. We lived in Atlanta in the late '60s, and Braves games are the first games I remember seeing live. My brother and I loved to see Chief Nokahoma come out and do his war dance when Aaron hit a home run.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

Originally posted by Shaql:
No. Baseball purists, such as KevinCW, believe that the DH is an abomination to the game of baseball. I do too.

Thus, any organization or people who support the DH rule are called communists. And they are!

Agreed, the DH is pure communism, and they are trying to sap and impurify our vital bodily fluids. But it looks like all of baseball may be stuck with it next year.

The Astros got forced into the AL when the previous owner wanted to sell. MLB wanted to even out the number of teams in the various divisions of both leagues and made a league switch a condition to approve the sale. More communism, and more literal communism in this case.

American sports leagues are socialist in their structure with revenue sharing and salary caps. The need to be competitive at the ownership-level has to be manufactured; only the most egotistical of owners show any need to be competitive and that's a by-product of their shortcomings. Curiously, soccer leagues around the world, are much more capitalistic than American sports leagues, as the threat of relegation forces owners & team executives to be competitive. Fail to win, and not only do you drop a level but, you have to re-work your finances since your revenue stream will shrink.

For the record, I hate the DH, a player needs 5-tools to compete.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Why the Astros were even allowed to play in the postseason is beyond me.

I know the Astros fans won't like my opinion but there's no denying what they did. There are at least three players still on the Astros roster, who were on the cheating team. The Astros should be banned from postseason play until every member of the cheating team has been replaced.

As an Astro Fan your opinion doesn't bother me.
As far as "cheating" I believe in what they tell you at the start of a boxing match > "Protect yourself at all time".
If you can see the signal then they are there for everyone to see.
Meh, and this is for every team, IMO.

quote:

If you can see the signal then they are there for everyone to see.

Of course, the difference being that the Astros were using a CAMERA to view the signs and then relaying them to the batter.

Not even remotely the same thing.

Well, they got their asses handed to them this time.

Nothing wrong with stealing signs - without the use of technology/electronic devices.

smschultz, don't act like you don't know what the Astros did. If you want to run into the thresher today, keep up the disingenuous attitude.

You know good and well what they did, and don't you dare try to defend it. Give me a fucking break.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
If you can see the signal then they are there for everyone to see.

And this includes watching the centerfield camera feed, the camera that can zoom in on a cunt hair?

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

American sports leagues are socialist in their structure with revenue sharing and salary caps. The need to be competitive at the ownership-level has to be manufactured; only the most egotistical of owners show any need to be competitive and that's a by-product of their shortcomings. Curiously, soccer leagues around the world, are much more capitalistic than American sports leagues, as the threat of relegation forces owners & team executives to be competitive. Fail to win, and not only do you drop a level but, you have to re-work your finances since your revenue stream will shrink.

For the record, I hate the DH, a player needs 5-tools to compete.

I wouldn't mind so much if the communism was purely voluntary. That is, if the revenue-sharing, salary caps, and the rest of it was purely voluntarily agreed among the owners. I wouldn't like it, but we are free to make deals with each other in our system.

What I do object is the anti-trust exemption baseball has in U.S. law. That hands way too much power to MLB under color of law.

And, yes, the European, cut-throat competition model in football leagues is fun. Don't play well and you get sent to the minors. The whole team. And the owner goes broke. I know the counterargument is that the big teams just get bigger, but that is the way it is in a dog-eat-dog world. And it is just sports. It isn't really important.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Why the Astros were even allowed to play in the postseason is beyond me.

I know the Astros fans won't like my opinion but there's no denying what they did. There are at least three players still on the Astros roster, who were on the cheating team. The Astros should be banned from postseason play until every member of the cheating team has been replaced.

As an Astro Fan your opinion doesn't bother me.
As far as "cheating" I believe in what they tell you at the start of a boxing match > "Protect yourself at all time".
If you can see the signal then they are there for everyone to see.
Meh, and this is for every team, IMO.

They used TVs in the clubhouse. It is expressly forbidden. They weren't just stealing signs by standing on 2nd.

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Nothing wrong with stealing signs - without the use of technology/electronic devices.

Very true. Me and my coaches did just that for 11 years coaching boy's travel ball. That said, knowing what's coming is helpful, but the batter still has to be good enough to beat the pitcher. Funny piece of my past. We had another coach stealing our pitch calling. Sooooooooo, in my infinite sarcasm, I stood outside my dugout and instead of signaling pitches to my catcher, I called them aloud to my pitcher for two innings. The opposing team got exactly one hit off us and no runs. I also called steals from first the same way when we were on offense. The parents couldn't stop laughing as my runners continued to successfully steal second. The other coach was significantly less enthused and asked me to stop my new approach to coaching.