The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball Blog

I just got a copy of last week’s USA Today Sports Weekly, and there’s a great review for the book by Devin Clancy. I can’t offer a link because it’s online, so I have to go the old-fashioned way: typing.

This book offers a complete, well-researched and entertaining look at every single kind of cheating. It offers both a historical perspective and a practical guide for both players and fans who want to learn to cheat or spot cheating.

Buy it from Amazon or your local bookseller.

There were two things I didn’t do in the original champagne post – I didn’t discuss whether I thought there was any wrongdoing, and what I thought an appropriate punishment might be. I ended up discussing this at length in radio interviews last week, and hopefully writing this up will help clarify things. In the future, I’m going to try and be much more complete in discussions like this, and try to offer that – it may be part of the reason the discussion on Yankee Stadium dimensions was pretty level-headed, while others haven’t. I freely admit this is going to be an ongoing process.

First, then: was there any wrong-doing associated with the gift? It’s pretty clear there wasn’t. For one, I’ve never met anyone with a bad word to say about Torii Hunter or Mike Sweeney. There’s no evidence there was any kind of untoward actions.

However, in the same way there’s no evidence that Rose did bad things to the Reds when he was caught betting on baseball, part of the problem is that bets/gifts create the possibility of wrongdoing, or the perception of wrongdoing, and undermine confidence in the integrity of the game. The rule and penalties aren’t there just to punish wrongdoing, they’re there to prevent actions that start down that slippery slope.

At the same time, a number of surprising things came out of this story:
- These kind of gifts happen more than we know, they just don’t make stories where they can be seen by the general public
- Both Hunter, Sweeney, and other team personnel, including GM Terry Ryan, were ignorant of the rule until the story broke. I find this a little hard to believe, especially since the rule’s posted in every clubhouse. And I find it weirder that Hunter, especially, who certainly knows his baseball history, wouldn’t know this. But if it’s a common practice, then it’s likely that either this is true or they just didn’t think it was an enforced rule.

And I agree (and I’ve talked about this elsewhere) that modern baseball has turned the rule into something of an anachronism. When players made little money, payoffs from other teams could make a huge difference in their lives, and could drive drastically different action. Today, when even the player making the minimum clears 300k, they’re immunized to a certain degree against bribery. A couple bottles of nice wine isn’t likely to make a modern player bat an eye.

But the rule remains. Baseball, through free agency and the rise of salaries, saw fit to keep the misconduct rule on the books.

What then is an appropriate punishment? I think baseball had two possible actions:

Significant action. Whether or not it happens other places, whether or not other people were doing it, it violates the rule, and the rule’s there for a reason. They might mitigate the punishment, but if baseball’s serious about enforcement of the rule (and their continued treatment of Rose would indicate they are) then every discovered instance needs to be acted on. If they’ve slipped on enforcement before, then they begin enforcement with this instance.

Token action, admit culpability. If baseball is going to let them off the hook, it should be part of a larger action. I’d have said “Having talked to everyone involved, we realize that there was no improper intent, and we’ve found no actions taken.” And then you admit the larger failures:
- We’ve failed to adequately inform the players and teams about the rule and its implications, and will be issuing a clarification memo and working with the MLBPA to ensure everyone’s well-informed about what constitutes a violation and knows the punishments
- We’ll be re-examining the rule in the off-season to discuss if there are revisions we should make: whether there’s room for gestures such as this, possibly a limitation on a gift’s value, or whether any gift allowance creates the room for perception of improper conduct and should remain prohibited

I’m entirely in favor of the latter. It allows baseball to avoid having to suspend two players for being unfortunate enough to be caught, but allows them to choose where they want to draw that line in the future – and where they put that line would be as much a public relations issue.

In general, I’m in favor of having a set of rules that are clear and applied fairly, and being aggressive about resolving contradictions and sections (like the game suspension/calling) that are likely to cause problems in the future, instead of waiting for a scandal. Anyone should be able to read the rules on anything – like the strike zone – and see the game called according to that rulebook. I don’t believe there should be different strike zones for different pitchers, for instance, though in the book I talk about how pitchers work that to their advantage, and as long as they’re allowed to do that, I applaud them for seeking that extra edge.

Or Gaylord Perry – one of the things I most admired about Perry is that each time the rules about what he could do on the mound changed, he adapted his routine to fit. He was a rule-abiding cheater, if you understand what I mean by that.

Baseball’s actual response – to get the gift returned and then do nothing about it at all – sends a really strange message:
- It’s wrong to do this
- If you do it and get caught, we’ll force you return it
- Though it’s wrong and we’ll act if you’re found out, we won’t enforce the penalties associated with the rule

It’s another part of a larger problem with baseball’s enforcement of many rules, which is that it’s okay to break rules unless we decide to enforce them — this is a future post, but it’s a lot like the rules about the DL, which teams regularly violate, MLB knows that a lot of the injuries are exaggerated or entirely made up, and the only time a team gets dinged is if the New York head office is mad at them for something unrelated.

If this had been Jose Canseco and Albert Belle in 1994, would Selig have been so forgiving, so quick to accept that a simple return of the gift would suffice?

This post’s run a lot longer than I thought it would. I hope that’s a reasonable explanation of the context I didn’t provide when I wrote about the incident and the history of Rule 21.

Kirk Radomski pled guilty to distributing anabolic steroids and laundering the money. The Smoking Gun has the plea agreement. Spoiler: no names in the agreement.

The short timeline: worked for the Mets 1985-1995, and then dealt drugs 1995-2005, when the police searched his house.

Interesting points:

He contacted some personally, but also did business through the telephone and mail. If this is the case, there will be phone records and other records to be traced back.

He’s agreeing to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including testimony, providing documents. This includes “f. I will not reveal my cooperation, or any information related to it, to anyone without prior consent of the government” and “g. I will participate in undercover activities…” both of which seem a hard to pull off now.

This is likely much bigger than the last dominoes: the Jason Grimsley roll-over, or the online pharmacy busts, which still haven’t affected anyone now playing.

We’ve only seen MLB punish one player (Grimsley) for a drug offense not related to testing positive. If Radomski’s cooperation provides a long list of players that he sent anabolic steroids to after baseball implemented its drug policy, it’s going to be an unwelcome series of decisions for the Commisioner’s office to make, and one, I’m sure, they’d rather not have to confront.

(hat tip to Thomas Nast for the Smoking Gun link)

3pm. Check it out. Stop by on your way to the game, even!

Powells on Hawthorne, 7pm. If you’re in Portland, come on out and chat. I look forward to meeting everyone.

I’ll be back with new content on Friday.

Rob Muhlhausen wrote:

So, the Yankees new stadium, which is opening in 2009, is being advertised as having the same dimensions as the current Yankee Stadium. Yankee Stadium currently is 318ft. down the left foul line and 314ft. down the right foul line. Major League Baseball rule 1.04(a) says, “Any Playing Field constructed by a professional club after June 1, 1958, shall provide a minimum distance of 325 feet from home base to the nearest fence, stand or other obstruction on the right and left field foul lines, and a minimum distance of 400 feet to the center field fence.” Aren’t the Yankees breaking the rules here?

Yes. But the Commissioner allows them to do it. While many parks have their fences at the minimum required distance, the last wave of ballparks had many that violated the space requirements:
- AT&T Park
- Minute Maid Park is 315 feet down the left-field line
- Oriole Park at Camden Yards is 318 feet down the right field line
- Petco Park is 396 feet to center field and 322 feet to right field
- PNC Park is 399 to center and 320 to right field

In each case, the team went to the Commish and said “hey, we’d like to put the fences closer than the rules allow” and he waived the requirement. Presumably, that’s what the Yankees will do to have their new digs built with dimensions that violate the rulebook requirement.

This raises an obvious question: if the Commissioner regularly waives the requirement, why is the requirement in the rules at all?

I don’t know. The league’s argument would probably be that the rules are designed to prevent a team from building a field that’s too crazy, and that requiring the Commissioner to review plans that violate the rule ensures that they can be sure that the close foul lines (or whatever the other tweak is) aren’t egregious, and the outfield ground’s made up in the power alleys (or somewhere).

But that’s not what happens – Minute Maid Park’s played as a severe hitter’s park since its inception, dragging up the whole league’s run-scoring. If the rules are intended to ensure that the game’s played within certain general run-scoring parameters, the way this is implemented has failed.

Considered this way, there’s nothing wrong with letting the Yankees build a new stadium with the same dimensions as the old. We have decades of information on how the current park plays, and it’s obvious it plays normally. Yankee Stadium today isn’t an oppressive pitcher’s park or a band box. As long as the Commissioner’s granting exceptions, there’s no reason you wouldn’t let this by.

In another way, though, giving this discretionary power to the Commissioner is part of baseball’s long move during Selig’s reign to put more and more authority to Selig, and includes other actions like the abolition of the league presidents (which is also not reflected in the rules). All of that allows him to award or punish teams based on his own feelings about the franchise, which in turn allows him to wield a huge stick in forcing draft slotting, for instance. Andrew Miller didn’t drop to the Tigers because the other teams didn’t want him. But that’s another topic entirely.

Hey, you may experience some bumps as I move the Cheater’s Guide to Baseball blog off of my personal site to cheatersguidetobaseball.com

Sorry if there’s any inconvenience.

What’s this site for?
Hey. I wrote my book, The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball, over the course of three years and change. I set up this blog to talk about topics from the book, and particularly to add on to the book’s content. Any research project this size means that there’s a ton of information that gets left out, and I think much of it’s worth sharing.

Sometimes, there are current events that bring up book topics or research – for instance, when Lew Burdette passed, I wrote a little post on his spitballing.

Obviously, the most widely-known posts are those dealing with contemporary issues, and how they relate to baseball’s history. The latest, on Torii Hunter and how his gift of champagne to Mike Sweeney reminded me of the days when players and teams regularly took such gifts and payoffs, and how that led to disaster in 1919 (“A bubbly reminder of a corrupt past“).

I’m also posting reviews, short book excerpts, and notices of signing engagements. I’m trying to ape Tango’s Inside the Book site, which I’ve rather enjoyed.

I’m entirely fascinated by baseball’s history and its rules, and I hope to be able to convey some of that joy and make everyone appreciate it as much as I do. I would love it if the site got people interested in the topic and they bought the book. If that counts as self-promotion for you, I hope that I can provide enough good free stuff to overwhelm you.

Were you a hall monitor?
No. I was a horrible delinquent. My parents were on a first-name basis with the administrators of every school I’ve ever attended, and I spent a significant fraction of my time at school in detention. This may help to explain the obvious joy I take in the topic, and my admiration for Gaylord Perry and other scoundrels, and why I wrote a whole book on it.

Why bring up this incident, which I find trivial?
For whatever reason, I thought it was interesting. Maybe it touched something in the book, or some of baseball’s past, or whatever. I’m sorry you don’t find it as cool as I do, but hang around — whatever your taste is, I’ll throw something out soon. If there’s something you’d like to see in particular, drop me a line.

Isn’t it a conflict of interest to be a Mariner fan and write about this stuff?
I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I love the topic, and I wrote a book about it. I’m not going to deny that I’m an M’s fan — but if you’ve read my stuff at USS Mariner, you know I’m a particularly critical one. I could, I guess, pretend that I didn’t grow up watching those wretched teams, and I’m not part of the beat-down, abjectly depressed Mariner Nation. But I am. I love baseball, and I’m a fan of the home team.

What’s the deal with comments?
Comments here are moderated, which means they don’t go up until I look at them and wave them on through. This is because so far, every post that touches a team’s current players gets me a ton of personal insults that just don’t add anything to a reasonable discussion.

Because I do, despite the most common accusation, have a life, that sometimes means it takes a while before I get to them.

Sometimes, when the signal:noise ratio gets too horrible, like when the Angels fans descended here, I’ll turn them off for a particular topic and request email instead.

So this is not a free-wheeling discussion forum of the kind you might be used to. Sorry if that’s a disappointment.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Monday afternoon, the Twins received a telephone call from the commissioner’s office. The Twins contacted the Royals, who agreed to send all four bottles of Dom Perignon back to Minnesota. Yes, Twins General Manager Terry Ryan said, those bottles are still unopened.

“I’m to blame as much as anybody because I didn’t know the rule,” Ryan said. “We’ll end up righting the wrong. We’ve already contacted the Royals. They’re going to return the goods, and hopefully that’ll be the end of it.”

The general manager of a major league team didn’t know the rule on misconduct posted in every clubhouse? The rule on betting and bribery? I’m surprised that would be the case.

The paper does quote Ryan on why it’s important:

By letting Hunter’s gesture pass, MLB would have to consider the precedent.

“Integrity of the game; it’s as simple as that,” Ryan said. “This is an honest, trivial exchange, but it could grow into something different if you let it get away.”

We’ll see what happens.

Check out this CNNSI story:

Authorities said Martinez flashed the powerful light at the players in the bottom of the eighth inning from his seat behind home plate. He was quickly ejected from the game.

One of the things I tried to run down while writing The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball were incidents of fans in Baltimore using mirrors to blind visiting players as a coordinated strategy, particularly when the players were trying to catch fly balls.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find enough contemporary evidence that it was something fans did in numbers, or as part of any kind of strategy. It was a lot easier to do when all the stadiums were outdoors and the games were played during the day, of course.

This is the first time I’ve heard of someone behind home plate using a flashlight, though.

hat tip to David Steinberg for the article