Sports

Wow…Not For the First Time, President Trump Doesn’t Know What the Hell He’s Talking About…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The topic, fortunately, is baseball, not the economy, foreign policy, or making America great again. Still, it is not a good sign when the leader of the free world spouts off like an ignorant fool professing absolute certainty without any genuine expertise whatsoever. If he does this about baseball…well, you can complete that sentence.

President Trump now demands that Roger Clemens be admitted to the Baseball Hall of Fame despite enough evidence that he used banned steroids late in his career to put him in the Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Sammy Sosa et al. Rogues Gallery of cheaters with great stats who fail the Hall’s character requirements. In a post on Truth Social today, Trump said that he had just played golf with the 11-time All-Star pitcher, and apparently this makes him an authority on The Rocket’s dubious past.

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Was Jen Pawol the Most Qualified Umpire or Was She Just “Historic”?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Over the weekend, minor league umpire Jen Pawol became the first woman to umpire in a Major League Baseball game, handling the bases in Game 1 of an Atlanta Braves-Miami Marlins doubleheader then moving behind the plate to call balls and strikes for Sunday’s game. Of course, MLB made a great hullabaloo over the momentous occasion. At various times during the season, minor league umpires are brought up to the big leagues to fill in for umpires getting their union-dictated vacations. Pawol is the only woman currently umpiring in the minor leagues. Thanks to baseball’s (and Commissioner Rob Manfred’s) wokeness obsession, she took her place in baseball history with a lingering and unavoidable doubt: would a man with her record and credentials have been chosen by MLB for the weekend umpiring chores? Were there more qualified and deserving male umpires who were passed over because they had y-chromosomes?

This is the scourge that the DEI fad has created. I feel sympathy for Pawol, but there is no avoiding it.

Naturally, MLB was ready for the questions and the suspicion. “Jen Pawol’s MLB debut is no PR stunt — she earned it the hard way” blared a Fox News headline, following an MLB press release. Methinks they doth protest too much. My suspicions were raised because just a few days earlier, the Boston Red Sox created team “history” by having an all-female broadcast team for a game. Why? Well, you know, because. The women were fine, professional play-by-play and color announcers, but nothing special except for their high voices. I’m sure there were plenty of long-time minor league male broadcasters who would have loved the chance to do a big league game, but, again, they wouldn’t be “historic,” so they were out of luck.

As with umpires, almost all baseball broadcasters are male and white. There’s no demonstrable discrimination at the heart of this: it’s self selection. Women don’t play hardball; blacks tend to be drawn to other sports as well. Why should that circumstance provide a special advantage to the minorities who do enter the field? Baseball doesn’t benefit from diversity of umpires: what matters is getting the calls right. Baseball fans want engaging, knowledgeable game broadcasts, and couldn’t care less about the sex and color of those providing it.

Meanwhile, there is still room for Manfred to carve out some more gratuitous history: baseball still hasn’t had a heterosexual female ump in the major leagues.

I’m Shocked…SHOCKED!…That Major League Baseball Is Facing a Gambling Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Cleveland Guardians (you know, the Indians?) pitcher Emmanuel Clase has been placed on non-disciplinary administrative leave through August 31 as part of Major League Baseball’s ongoing investigation into gambling. Clase’s teammate, pitcher Luis Ortiz, was the first player placed on leave under the ongoing investigation.

“The Guardians have been notified by Major League Baseball that as part of their sports betting investigation Emmanuel Clase has been placed on non-disciplinary paid leave per an agreement with the Players Association,” the team said yesterday in a statement. “We have been informed that no additional players or Club personnel are expected to be impacted. The Guardians are not permitted to comment further at this time, and will respect the league’s confidential investigative process as we continue to fully cooperate.”

Clase, an elite closer (the relief pitcher who pitches in the 9th inning when his team is ahead) signed a five-year, $20 million extension in April 2022. He’s being paid $4.5 million this year and has a $6 million guarantee for the 2026 season under the terms of that contract. Why would anyone making that much money risk it all to get involved with gambling in a sport where doing so guarantees banning from the game? That’s easy: professional athletes are not, as a rule, very bright, but are greedy,and have the ethics alarms of 12-year-olds.

I covered this issue in a longer post in February. I was right, the professional sports leagues are wrong, any fool could see it (but these organizations are not run ny just any fools, but very special fools), and the result is unavoidable. The embrace of gambling by sports organizations is going to be a disaster. It is hypocritical, incompetent and irresponsible.

Little League Ethics: A Bat Flip Controversy Goes To Court

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Little Leaguer Marco Rocco of Haddonfield, N.J., 12-years-old, hit a majestic home run in a Little League tournament game against a team from Harrison last week. Marco emulated what many big league players do in similar moments of triumph: he flipped his bat into the air to celebrate as he began to circle the bases. His homer put his team up 8-0 and a step closer to the Little League World Series.

But Marco was ejected from the game, and, by the Little League rules, the ejection included a one-game suspension for the next game too. Marco’s innocent bat flip meant he would would be barred from playing in a showdown against Elmora Township, with a the New Jersey state Little League title on the line. Marco’s father was told that in the umpire’s judgment, his son broke a rule that “At no time should ‘horseplay’ be permitted on the playing field.” No rule mentions bat-flipping.

So Mr. Rocco, who is a lawyer, filed a motion asking a New Jersey court for a temporary restraining order, and got it. The judge that Marco could play, in the next game, which took place yesterday, holding that “Little League is enjoined from enforcing its suspension.”

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Comment of the Day: “Ethics Quote of the Week: The New York Times”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Steve-O-in NJ has some trenchant comments about what the Democrats are doing, or trying to do. Personally, I think the operative word here may be “denial.” Or cowardice. Or a political party that has become wedded to lies as its primary tactic whatever the issue, and can’t kick the habit even when it obviously isn’t working any more.

At the 1968 Masters Tournament, pro golfer Roberto De Vicenzo (above) signed an scorecard without checking it, thereby costing him a spot in an 18-hole playoff for the storied championship. He said, “Oh what a stupid I am!” and it stuck with me, as well as with many others, remembered as a poignant expression of regret and self-recrimination. I wasn’t in the ethics biz back then, but I admired the golfer for an honest, brutal assessment of his accountability. I am certain that he never again signed a scorecard without checking the strokes.

What the apparent plan of the Democrats in the wake of last November’s disaster—that is, the Harris-Walz ticket and their stunningly incompetent campaign—is to admit nothing, learn nothing, and to keep existing in as miasma of self-deception. Good luck with that. And I can’t wait to hear the argument asserting why anyone should ever trust a party that responds to failure like that to run anything, not just an economy, but a shoe-shine stand. President Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced last week that about $4 billion in unspent federal funding for California’s absurdly delayed and overbudget high-speed rail project has been terminated.  This boondoggle was originally passed as a ballot initiative in 2008, a 800-mile rail line to be completed by 2020 in two phases on a $33 billion budget, connecting San Francisco with Los Angeles and branches stretching north to Sacramento and south to San Diego. In 2019, Newsom announced that there was no path to completing the original plan after costs ballooned, so the project was cut back to a 171-mile section between Merced and Bakersfield. Of course, the responsible course would have been to end the project entirely. High speed rail, however, as one wag wrote last week, is to transportation what wind farms are to energy: woke, virtue-signaling fantasies unmoored to reality.

Here is Steve-O’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quote of the Week: The New York Times”:

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Ethics Quiz: The Non-Star All-Star Game Selection

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This is fun: a different kind of MLB annual All-Star Game ethics controversy! We’ve never seen this one before: usually the controversies over baseball’s “mid-summer classic” (This is All-Star Game week, with the teams taking a break around Wednesday’s game televised on Fox News.) involve fairness in the selections (there are always more deserving players than the limited rosters can hold, whether every team should have at least one representative even when that means selecting a mediocre player having a so-so season, whether there was bias in the selection of the reserves, whether aging great players should be included on the squad because they really are the players the fans want to see, whether the fan voting system is absurd, stuff like that. (Some past controversies are discussed here,)

Never this, however: MLB added Milwaukee Brewers rookie Jacob Misiorowski to the National League All-Star team last week. “Who?”you well may ask? Misiorowski is a highly touted rookie who has only been in the major leagues for about a month. He’s been the starting pitcher in just five games, and now holds the record for fewest games ever played in by a player making an All-Star team—by a lot. Wails Yahoo Sports,

“The main goal of the Midsummer Classic is to recognize the players who have performed at a high level through the first half of the MLB season. With that, it also allows fans to see the stars of the game they might not watch on a regular basis. But by adding Misiorowski to the NL All-Star roster, MLB has sent a message to players that not only does the game not matter, but performance doesn’t matter, either.”

Misiorowski is what baseball jargon refers to as a “phenom.”

He’s viewed as a future superstar, and has looked like it, beginning his career with 11 perfect innings, no hits, no walks. Nobody had done that in the history of the game, He regularly tops 100 mph on his fastball, which has been clocked as speedy as 103. Yes, he’s an exciting newcomer who may do great things…eventually.

But picking him for the All-Star Game is like, oh, let’s pick an absurd hypothetical, like giving a Nobel Peace Prize to a newly elected U.S. President before he’s actually done anything related to peace at all. Not that such a thing could ever happen….

Your Ethics Alarms All-Star Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is it unethical for Misiorowski to be selected for the All-Star Game?

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There’s No Crying In Tennis!

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Poland’s No. 8 seed Iga Świątek beat the U.S.’s 13th seed Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 in the Wimbledon women’s final yesterday. That’s a slaughter in tennis, ending Anisimova’s feel good story as an underdog in humilation.

Świątek is one one of the best players in the world; though this is Świątek’s first Wimbledon title it’s her sixth Grand Slam title. She was favored to win, but no one has won the Women’s finals 12 games to none in a Grand Slam tournament since 1988. Anisimova’s wipe-out is being attributed to nerves; if she were a male player, the explanation would be “choking.”

Worse, however, is that after the match Anisimova started weeping, covered her head with a towel and left the court. When she came back to a huge reception from the crowd, she was still sobbing. After receiving the runners-up’s plate at center court, she cried some more as she addressed the crowd.

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UPenn Capitulates in the Trans Swimming Scandal, If In a Weaselly Way…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Well, it’s still progress. Conservative, Trump cheer-leading outlets are pushing the “So much winning!” line, but anyone progressive, conservative or otherwise who couldn’t see that UPenn’s “transitioning” swimmer Lia Thomas (above: guess right or left) was a cheat had his or her brain eaten by the Woke Virus.

UPenn announced yesterday that it would no longer allow transgender women to compete on its women’s sports teams and erased Thomas’ records from UPenn’s list of all-time school records in women’s swimming. “Competing under eligibility rules in effect at the time, Lia Thomas set program records in the 100, 200 and 500 freestyle during the 2021-22 season,” the UPenn weasels injected as a footnote. That’s part of UPenn’s spin. A cheating swimming coach (who should be fired) let Thomas, a mediocre male swimmer who saw a loophole to exploit, be the star of the women’s team to enhance his coaching record. But UPEnn could get away with it then, so it was all right.

The change in policy was part of an agreement reached with the Education Department yesterday about two months after the department found that Penn had violated Title IX, the federal statute prohibiting sex discrimination in schools, when it allowed transgender athletes to compete on women’s sports teams. The Trump administration had frozen millions of dollars in federal funding for the school over its transgender athlete policies. AUTOCRACY! No, this is called “using legitimate government power for justice and the public good.” As part of the deal, UPenn says it will “apologize” to the women placed at a competitive disadvantage by its allowing a penised swimmer with male-puberty musculature to slaughter competing female swimmers in one pool after another last year.

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Ethics Dunce: NY Mets Catcher Luis Torrens

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

If you play a sport professionally and make 1.5 million dollars to do it as Luis Torrens does, you are obligated to know the damn rules. Torrens, if he knew them, forgot one of them in the play above that occurred yesterday in the Mets’ game against the Atlanta Braves.

You see, baseball players can not use their equipment or uniforms to affect the movements of a baseball. One’s bare hand, sure; one’s foot even. A player’s glove, of course, is used to catch the ball. But not equipment or parts of the uniform. A player can’t legally catch a ball in his hat, for example. Players have thrown their gloves at home run balls to deflect them back on the field, and a special rule forbids even that.

With runners on second and third, a pitch in the dirt from Mets starter Paul Blackburn forced Torrens to slide to block the ball from rolling away and allowing the runners to advance. But as he hustled over to the ball, the catcher used his mask to stop it from rolling further before grabbing it with his glove.  The umpires declared that Torrens had violated MLB Rule 5.06(b)(3)(E), declaring that it is illegal when “a fielder deliberately touches a pitched ball with his cap, mask or any part of his uniform detached from its proper place on his person.” The Braves runner on third was awarded home plate, scoring an unearned run, and the runner of second advanced to third base.

From Boston, a Stunning “King’s Pass” Rejection [Updated!]

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“The King’s Pass” is #11 on the EA Rationalizations List, where it is described as follows:

One will often hear unethical behavior excused because the person involved is so important, so accomplished, and has done such great things for so many people that we should look the other way, just this once. This is a terribly dangerous mindset, because celebrities and powerful public figures come to depend on it. Their achievements, in their own minds and those of their supporters and fans, have earned them a more lenient ethical standard. This pass for bad behavior is as insidious as it is pervasive, and should be recognized and rejected whenever it raises its slimy head. In fact, the more respectable and accomplished an individual is, the more damage he or she can do through unethical conduct, because such individuals engender great trust.

Sports teams, both professional and amateur, are among the organizations most vulnerable to The King’s Pass, which is also called “The Star Syndrome.” Thus it is particularly satisfying to see the only sports team I care about, the Boston Red Sox, take a strong stand against the rationalization in one of the most vivid anti-#11 moves within memory by any organization in sports or out.

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