Not a fan of teams taking punishments into their own hands when the MLB doesn’t discipline strict enough. Kelly will forever be a legend in some eyes and a tool in others. I don’t have a problem with Kelly’s actions. I would also hate to see the whole league gun at Astros because their front office organized a plan to cheat.
No way the players could be disciplined in this, because the powerful players association would not allow if.
In the 70's and early 80's there would not be any second thoughts - they would either accept their beanings or charge the mound and settle it man to man -
Hell I's throw at Toothpick as he sat on the bench flapping his gums...
Bib Gibson would of decapitated the s-o-b-s.....
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
It is going forward, MLB now has the Houston Astericks rule. A lot men, at some point in their professional careers or lives, are faced with the dilemma of doing something that while maybe not exactly illegal it is no doubt immoral, the Astericks went beyond the line of immorality. You would admit to that. Stealing a sign while on second base is one thing, what it looks like the Astros did is quite another. And I don't think the Astericks were the only ones to think of this, only they were willing to cross that line or at least get caught (along with the Red Sox). The punishment, still too firm in my opinion, but RM warned all teams before the season the Astericks weren't to be touched.
Speaking of which did you see the action this weekend? The Astericks hitting coach was barking at the A's batter who was upset at getting hit two at bats in a row (three times in the series) and challenged the A's hitter to come after him. The A's batter charged the whole dugout. Of course, the Astericks hitting coach stepped back and let the players decide the matter.
Please don't be upset about the whole Houston Astericks thing. I also type Barry Bonds* and Mark McGwire*. LOL. At least we do not have to endure the whole banging of garbage cans this year.
Y'all should really watch this ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmlRbfSavbI
... now tell me how baseball avoids this reality.
Could only watch about a minute. The nerd was too excited when the runner stole second. MLB has made a rule against electronic devices to steal signs after the Houston Astericks situation. Will some teams and/or players use stuff like this? Maybe there are always cheaters, in every walk of life. But MLB players and managers know when runners are likely to steal by the game situation and the baserunner/catcher/pitcher combination. It is kind of like when Tony Romo would tell fans what the play was going to be while the offense was lining up. Then the plays happens just like Tony said. Why? Because Tony spent his entire life preparing to play football. Baseball players and managers know if a steal is likely or not.
My only point is that sooner or later they will do the same with pitches and every other sign in the game. You should see the community that exists in the NFL to scrape and analyze the play by play data in the NFL. These are not folks hired by NFL teams. It is fans. So lets say that fans put up a website so that informed nerd fans can tell what pitches are going to happen based on the signs they see on TV. Is studying those sites out of bounds for MLB teams? Even if it is, do we think they will?
I think the sign culture in baseball is going to have to change. It is just a matter of time before my theoretical fan interest website is a reality. If they DO already know this, then why are folks so mad at the Astros ... I'm not justifying the behavior. I am just saying that the writing is on the wall. It is one thing to study film for hours and hours a week and notice a tendency that you can exploit. It is how Tracy Porter pulled off the game sealing interception in the Saints SB win. A machine will eventually be trained to watch that film MUCH faster and find more trends to exploit. Sports are going to be strange when everybody knows what is going happen more frequently ... that, or our tactics will have to get even more unpredictable.
they just need to allow some sort of electronic communication between pitcher and catcher so that signs can't be stolen without hacking. technology is not the problem -- it's the answer.
That is cool! Machine learning...good stuff.
When I played Dizzy Dean League ball, ages 17-19, we had a former Tulane player as our head coach, he was like 24 or so, barely older than us. Anyway he had this super sophisticated signal system, further complicated by his changing the indicators (yes, usually two) every inning! He was afraid the other team might steal our signs. In the parish playoffs we had a runner on first and he starts his sequence. The batter goes, huh? and steps out of the box calling time. The base runner shrugs his shoulders, like...what are you saying coach? So, our coach gets mad and he emphasizes the indicators, such as touching his right shoulder was it, but then he slaps his shoulder hard, like, look! Finally the dad of one of the players who had attended just about every game, yells from the stands, "he wants y'all to hit and run!" Which, was right. LOL!