I know the season is about to start, and we want to look forward, but I wanted to bring something up about the so called "scandal" and would love to hear your thoughts. Banging on trash cans. I know Hinch and Luhnow were the fall guys, but let me ask you a question. How in the world does Crane, Nolan Ryan, Reid Ryan, guys like Biggio & Baggy, not know what was going on? They're sitting right there behind home plate, night after night, all of them are baseball guys, you can't tell me that they're not at least curious as to what the banging on the trash cans is all about (or have a pretty good idea what's going on)? Then asking Luhnow and Hinch what's going on with this? Or knowing exactly what's going on and not seeing that it was a big deal? I know Hinch said he tried to stop it two different times and regrets that he wasn't more forceful. I know Crane isn't going to fire himself, but what about the phrase "the buck stops here"? In my humble opinion Crane and Nolan had to have known what was going on. Why didn't they stop it? Is this one of the reasons Nolan left? I get it, I know cheating is rampant throughout baseball, and continues to be so. I know the 'Stros were used to make an example and to take the heat because they sure in the heck weren't going to come down on the Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers. Still waiting for the MLB report on the Yankees to be released and we all know why they do NOT want it released. "Checks in the mail" and we can keep in waiting. I know this is a subject that is painful to discuss, and my apologies for bringing it up. I truly appreciated Nook and his recent comments about all the cheating going on in baseball. Some good baseball minds on here and would love to hear your thoughts on who else you think knew what was going on and ultimately why didn't they chime in to try to get it stopped?
Nolan left because his son got replaced, it's not that complicated. As for whether all those guys knew, none of them were regularly hanging around the clubhouse so it's quite possible they didn't know. Tons of people heard the banging and nobody felt like going after it in the media until snitchy. Bagwell and Biggio were also almost certainly aware of rampant steroid use, possibly (likely) did it themselves, and never felt the need to talk about it. So even if they did know they likely didn't care. As for the Ryans and Crane. Maybe they did know, maybe they didn't, but it honestly doesn't matter to me. Crane wants to win, as long as that remains true I'm behind him. Nolans a legend and I will always love him, but he's kind of fickle.
Chance of Bagwell saying anything if they knew? ZERO A lot of players and people around the team knew.. and it wasn’t a big deal.
Thanks seal. I'm not trying to come down on Crane and the others, love all of them, just thinking they weren't in the dark as what was going on (in my opinion) and why they didn't think it should be stopped.
My family sat in those seats several times in 2017 and never remember even noticing the noise. Had I noticed it I probably would have thought it was someone in the cages or someone throwing a weighted ball against the wall in the tunnel. No way would I have thought it was cheating without knowing beforehand. Seems dumb to presume what people did and did not know.
Do you think it’s ok when a runner at second looks at the catcher signs and relays them to the batter? Or a bench coach whistles to the pitcher after seeing the opposing third base coach give the batter a series of signs? I think looking at signs was just so much a part of the game... far more than what most fans were privy to... that any escalation or attempt to expand upon those actions weren’t really thought of as “game changing”. These are acts they were still doing at certain situations... and are continuing to do so at certain situations. It seems like it’s ok (sign stealing) in a redacted form... once you have players on the base paths. But that’s still somewhat of a technicality as the premise/intention still remains. there’s also the fact that once the system went away, there was no appreciable difference in performance. Nor was a drop off when they went on road games.
This. And, for me, it's the end of the discussion. Cheating: bad. Cheating that didn't help: bad, but, meh. Cheating that half the league is doing AND didn't help: ok stop crying, you lot of bloody snowflakes.
Just because you were busy eating your hot dog and not hearing it doesn't mean that people who know the game were curious as to what was going on. People within the organization following up on that curiosity.
I agree and as I said cheating has been rampant throughout baseball for years (and will continue to be). Also as nick said don't think there's any difference between what was going on and baserunners stealing signs. My point of bringing it up is that Hinch and Luhnow took all the heat when I feel pretty confident Crane knew what was going on (and others) and nobody tried to stop it. As pointed out, didn't think it was that big of a deal. Was just curious as to what others thought. "Snowflake"? I'm probably old enough to be your dad or grandpa
Sorry, the "snowflake" barb was very much directed at the mediots and the social media outrage machine that turned this dustbunny into a mountain. Not intended towards you. Also, probably not. Like seriously not, or you're in the record books.
I was pretty disappointed when the whole thing came to light, and still would've preferred it if they had won without cheating, but oh well. I think baseball is a bit of an odd sport in general with all of the unwritten rules, etc. I can also understand the mentality that if you believe all teams are doing it, then you're disadvantaged if you don't do it as well. Perhaps a good analogy is pine tar or other foreign substances that are 'banned'. It seems to be pretty well accepted that most, if not all pitchers use it, and that it does affect performance/spin rates. Should pitchers stop doing it when MLB does nothing to enforce it? I guess eventually it goes back to the concept that laws without enforcement are not actually laws. Teams will just need to pay close attention to when MLB plans to start enforcing stuff.
