Simple question:
What's worse for baseball? Gambling or Steroids?
Simple question:
What's worse for baseball? Gambling or Steroids?
Gambling.
Nothing to see here. Please disperse.
This one's obvious to me.
The Lost Decade Average Season: 74-88
2014-22 Average Season: 71-91
I know I voted gambling, but apparently there's a small contingent out there lobbying for roids.Originally Posted by Cyclone792
Both pretty bad but gambling is tops.
Go Gators!
They're both equally give the major shaft to the guys who play by the rules. That's the worst thing about both of them, so they're equally bad.
agreed equally bad
THE University of Cincinnati
Gambling is bad for the integrity of the game.
Steroids are also bad, but it's not just the integrity of the records at stake. It's the young players who thought they needed to use the 'juice' to be on equal footing with those players who were willingly cheating. When baseball initially turned a blind eye to steroid users, it sent a bad message to players from the Major Leagues to youth leagues.
Choose your crime...eh?
In this day and age, I'd have to say STERIODS.
That's because the economics of the game have changed.
There are two kinds of gambling on baseball: recreational gambling and throwing games. The first kind may be against the rules of baseball, but has absolutely no bearing on the outcomes or the economics of the game (Who gets what or how much). If Pedro Martinez puts down $100 on an Indians-Tigers game, it simply doesn't matter.
In the case of throwing games, things change, since as a result of those actions, championships may be won or lost, some people will stand to make more (or less) than they deserve otherwise.
However, there is little incentive for players to throw games nowadays, since the payoff on a wager can't be much compared to the payoff for a good performance.
How much could a player actually bet without being detected? $100.000 perhaps?
And the player (s) betting would have to be impact players who are probably already making a lot of money (or stand to once they hit Arb. or FA). In addition, performing poorly in one or several games, lowers a players' value, at times significantly. (How much did Buckner's error cost him?).
With steriods, however, by enhancing their performance players are -in effect- not only altering the "otherwise" outcomes of the games, but stealing in a continuous fashion from all the clean players within the sport. (major league, minors, amateur, maybe even little league).
Roids are worse, as the game is today. IMHO, its not even close to being close.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
http://dalmady.blogspot.com
Gambling is to baseball what murder is to society.
Gambling in baseball is baseball's ultimate crime. If it was allowed to rampage persistently through the game, the game would eventually crumble into nothingness.
Who would want to attend a baseball game if there was a good chance it was controlled by the bookies?
The Lost Decade Average Season: 74-88
2014-22 Average Season: 71-91
Gambling I dont even see how it is comparable.
What Cyclone and kbrake have said. Not even close to the same in the context of professional sports (or any sports!).
GAMBLING... is the worst thing.
I am at one with oneupper on this one. I think that given the current state of baseball, steroids are worse. This does not mean that I in any way condone gambling.
Baseball is, ideally, a manifestation of the best in people [insert many wonderful great things here] through sport, ie. physical activity. Steroids therefore immediately negate most of the good that comes from baseball, because the validity of the physical activity itself is questioned. I don't see how the argument can be made that gambling is more harmful to the sport's integrity when the sport's integrity, by definition, depends on the strength of an athlete's body, on an athlete's commitment not to harm his body. Steroids harm the body, period. Unfortunately, steroids seem to help the record books, at least temporarily.
Gambling is, in its most extreme cases, a serious addiction. In many cases it needs to be treated in the same way as an alcohol or drug addiction. I am not in any way excusing any player who bets on baseball; he deserves a serious punishment, including, yes, lifetime banishment in certain cases. But I don't think our society necessarily recognizes gambling as anything more than something people do for fun and something people can quit anytime they want. It's not, or at least it's not always. There may be more serious things going on with a gambler that he is not necessarily able to control on his own.
Steroids are a choice. You can get hooked on them the same way you can with anything else, but they begin as a choice. And in our present time, it is a choice that may be getting harder for players to say no to, as long as the records keep getting broken and it becomes clearer that more and more players are doing it. Gambling begins as a choice too, I suppose, but introductions to gambling usually begin pre-baseball or independently of baseball, and I can very easily see how someone can be hooked long before he realizes that his handing a handful of money to somebody will harm a whoooooooole lot of people. By the time a player is given steroids, even if it's in high school, he has to know that it will immediately affect his body, his performance, his team, and anyone who watches him and follows his career.
Part of this may be a generational thing. Pete Rose has fallen in my lifetime and it was sad, but that's the only example I can think of offhand that has really affected me, and I can't say it had a permanent effect on my outlook on the game. But nearly every single record, almost every great accomplishment, that I've seen happen in my lifetime is now questionable. It's become pretty clear that certain players whom I loved did not achieve what they did on their own merits, either because they didn't believe in themselves enough to do so, or they didn't respect their team or the game, or because they were too filled with greed for money or fame to let things happen as they could naturally. That hurts. And that can hurt with gambling too; I just happen to have seen much, much more of the former.
There is no such thing as a pitching prospect.
Great post, Vatican.
I almost went with "equally bad", but I decided in the end to go with "gambling". Why?
The problem with both is that they call into question the integrity of the game--whether the results that were generated are genuine or fictitious. I believe both are a threat to the game and need to be taken--and dealt with--seriously.
However, I decided to vote "gambling" for one reason--steroids can make a good player great, or an average player good, but if the fundamental skills aren't there, all the steroids in the world won't help you. So their universal effect on the outcome of games is marginalized. Gambling, however, is a different story. In that case, it doesn't matter whether the player in question is great or awful--both have an equal opportunity to "throw" games or create questionable outcomes. The potential for doing this exists every single time a player who has gamble dont he game appears in the game.
In other words, it's easier for a player who has gambled on a game to cast its results into question than a steroid user. Again, not that this in any way defends the use of steroids or diminishes the detrimental effect they have had on the game--I just happen to think that gambling is an overall greater, and more persistent, threat.
We'll burn that bridge when we get to it.
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