Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There was a time in baseball when blacks couldn't play. How different the record books would have been if that was the case early on. One league has a DH, not the other. Doesn't that impact stats?
Guys were once using greenies. Now banned. Creatine is a performance enhancing supplement. Not banned by MLB.
How do we know who, already in the HOF, broke records were using or used PEDs? We don't.
There was a time in baseball when blacks couldn't play. How different the record books would have been if that was the case early on. One league has a DH, not the other. Doesn't that impact stats?
Guys were once using greenies. Now banned. Creatine is a performance enhancing supplement. Not banned by MLB.
How do we know who, already in the HOF, broke records were using or used PEDs? We don't.
This argument has been seen before and it fails to make sense.
First, if the problem is that baseball has always featured cheats, in what manner does that now obligate us to overlook current cheating? What security operation conducts itself along those lines? Do we forgive a thief we caught today because in the past others have gotten away with robbery? Why should we take the attitude that because others have gotten away with something, we can do nothing about the people getting away with it now?
Second, could you please identify any baseball record for which you have evidence, or even probable cause for suspicion, which is tainted by cheating apart from the PEDs generation? Could you also provide us with any evidence you have that greenies were responsible for some player suddenly having a season, or seasons, way out of congruency with his previous performances?
As for the business about the pre integration age, despite that injustice directed at minority players, the field still remained level for those competing, didn't it? The absence of black players did not impart an advantage to some white players while not to others.
Finally, why would you even mention Creatine if it is not a banned substance? If all players are equally free to use Craetinem that does not represent any advantage for one over another. You may as well have written that some players ate Wheaties while others did not.
What evidence do we have that any PED use contributed to records being broken? We don't. We can speculate, but we don't know for sure. Lots of MLB players were taking PEDs and were not having record-breaking seasons or drastically improving their performances.
And do we actually know when the PED/ steroid era truly began? We don't know either.
So why not be able to void contracts based on failing a medical test?.
Again, the issue is not the morality of voiding contracts, it is the ability. MLB has to negotiate with its labor force, it cannot dictate to them what the rules of compensation will be, there has to be an agreement which both sides accept.
It is extremely unlikely that the MLBPA would accept, no matter what the justification, an arrangement where an employer can void an existing contract unilaterally. No union would accept such a thing. It will accept penalties and suspensions for violations of the rules of the game, but it will not accept a precedent where all of the power rests with the employer and the employee is subject to the caprice of the employer when it comes to fulfilling or not fulfilling the terms of their contractual agreement.
Start a competitive league, with no drug restrictions. Let the dopers knock themselves out in the Doper League. See if the fans want to see clean players, or doped players. Adjust the number of franchises periodically, according to how many eligible players there are in each league's talent pool. Anybody in the clean league who fails a drug test is automatically banished to the Doper League forever. See which league disappears.
Anybody in the clean league who fails a drug test is automatically banished to the Doper League forever.
What happens to a player in the Doper League who passes a drug test?
Start a new league you say, well, exactly how do you envisage this unfolding? Take half the present MLB teams and form a new league? Try and start a competitive league with new franchises in the same locations as the existing ones? Do they share the same stadium or will the new league require edifices of their own?
Or will it be new franchises in cities which currently have no MLB? That wouldn't make for fair competition since the largest 30 markets are already taken.
It's not like it has never been done before. Review the origin of the Federal League in 1914 (or Lamar Hunt's American Football League). People with money and ambition organized a league , and tried to raid MLB for talent. If a large enough number of quality players are deemed ineligible for MLB, there will be a talent pool for them to pick from. The Federal League failed because not enough MLB players were willing to make the jump, but if MLB disqualifies a lot of marketable attractions, it could have a better (but I'm not saying a certain) chance. Lord knows there are plenty of very rich and eccentric Americans willing to give it a fling. Unless A-Rod is a spendthrift, he has enough money to fund the league by himself, along with a spiteful motive to do so.
Independent League baseball already exists, with growing economic success, not under the umbrella of MLB. It is in the suburbs of MLB markets, and keeping its head above water, even without any players of ostensible MLB or even high Minor League caliber. Current or recent Indy leagues teams are playing in suburban ballparks in Minneapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis, Fort Worth, Houston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Cincinnati and New Jersey. In addition, organized Minor League teams are drawing decently in suburban Los Angeles, Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia. Along with markets that currently support NFL franchises but have no MLB, such as Buffalo, Indianapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Charlotte. Plenty of room for more baseball tickets to be sold.
It's not like it has never been done before. Review the origin of the Federal League in 1914 (or Lamar Hunt's American Football League). People with money and ambition organized a league , and tried to raid MLB for talent. If a large enough number of quality players are deemed ineligible for MLB, there will be a talent pool for them to pick from. The Federal League failed because not enough MLB players were willing to make the jump, but if MLB disqualifies a lot of marketable attractions, it could have a better (but I'm not saying a certain) chance. Lord knows there are plenty of very rich and eccentric Americans willing to give it a fling. Unless A-Rod is a spendthrift, he has enough money to fund the league by himself, along with a spiteful motive to do so.
Independent League baseball already exists, with growing economic success, not under the umbrella of MLB. It is in the suburbs of MLB markets, and keeping its head above water, even without any players of ostensible MLB or even high Minor League caliber. Current or recent Indy leagues teams are playing in suburban ballparks in Minneapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis, Fort Worth, Houston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Cincinnati and New Jersey. In addition, organized Minor League teams are drawing decently in suburban Los Angeles, Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia. Along with markets that currently support NFL franchises but have no MLB, such as Buffalo, Indianapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Charlotte. Plenty of room for more baseball tickets to be sold.
The standard you postulated was either the existing league exterminating the Doper League, or the Doper League killing MLB.
Quote:
See which league disappears
...you wrote.
Then your suggested new league venues come with the descriptives "keeping its head above water" and "drawing decently."
I wouldn't have both those things in your proposal .
I indicated that under some guise, the dopers might have a venue in which to play, and then, when challenged, even floated a rough outline of a possible scenario. You say it would be impossible to envisage, merely because you see a possible conflict in one of the features I described. OK.
I indicated that under some guise, the dopers might have a venue in which to play, and then, when challenged, even floated a rough outline of a possible scenario. You say it would be impossible to envisage, merely because you see a possible conflict in one of the features I described. OK.
Except of course I never said that, did I?
And the "one feature" happens to be whether enough people show up to make the league thrive or go under, the most critical possible feature.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
