Cap Anson

Ethics Quiz: The New England Patriots’ Loophole Victory

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments
Cap Anson would have loved the Patriots strategy. If he wasn't dead, of course. And if they had football when he was alive....

Cap Anson would have loved the Patriots strategy. If he wasn’t dead, of course. And if they had football when he was alive….

On Saturday night, the New England Patriots ran a series of plays that exploited the complicated receiver eligibility rules, confusing the Baltimore Ravens and officials, and allowing the Pats, who were trailing badly, to get back into the game. They eventually won in a thriller.

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh was so upset during the sequence that he drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Later, he stopped just short of calling new England coach Bill Belichick a cheater. “[I]t’s a substitution type of a trick type of a thing,” Harbaugh told reporters after the game. “So they don’t give you the opportunity, they don’t give you the chance to make the proper substitutions and things like that. It’s not something that anybody’s ever done before. The league will look at that type of thing and I’m sure that they’ll make some adjustments and things like that.”  Indeed, the NFL will investigate whether the officiating crew gave the Ravens proper notice that an eligible Patriots player would be ineligible for a given play.

Let me quote NBC Sports to explain what happened: I barely understand it myself: Continue reading →

Baseball Ethics And The Pitcher’s Fake Challenge: It’s All About Yu

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments
Pitcher Yu Darvish plays Lucy...ethical?

Pitcher Yu Darvish plays Lucy…ethical?

Texas Ranger ace Yu Darvish, in addition to being the only Japanese-Iranian major league baseball player and an Abbot and Costello routine come to life (“Who won the game?” “Yu did!” “Who did? “Not Who, Yu!”  “Me?” “Not you…Yu!” ), is apparently something of a trickster. In Saturday’s crucial game between the Rangers and the Oakland A’s, Darvish was facing A’s slugger Josh Donaldson, who had earlier in the season accused Darvish, a true flame-thrower, of being afraid to throw him his fastball. Darvish took up the challenge and as he prepared to throw his pitch to the Oakland thirdbaseman, shouted, “Fastball!” This, in the tine-honored traditions of the game, means that a pitcher is telling a batter that he can’t hit his best pitch, even when he knows what’s coming. It means, literally, “OK, hot shot, see if you can hit this, ’cause I’m throwing it right past you!”

Then Darvish threw Donaldson a curve.

The ruse didn’t work, for Donaldson got a hit. Still, Oakland’s dugout erupted, as the A’s expressed their belief that this was “bush league,” meaning an act consisting of unprofessional and unsporting conduct not specifically prohibited by the rules but nonetheless unfair and not worthy of big league players. Continue reading →