Rodón, talking to NBC Sports Chicago's Chuck Garfien on Tuesday, drew a comparison between the 10-game suspensions Major League Baseball will hand out to pitchers caught using any sort of foreign substance on the mound and the suspensions that weren't handed out after the league uncovered the Houston Astros' cheating scandal ahead of the 2020 season. "It's hard to see this when you're giving out 10-game suspensions for cheating but you give the Astros no suspensions at all," Rodón said. "So if Rob Manfred can look at himself in the mirror and say, 'Hey, I'm doing the right thing,' that's fine. You can't suspend the team you actually knew was cheating during a playoff game, that's on you." […] Rodón's comments reflected the demarcation plenty of players are bringing up between getting a grip on the ball and making the ball do unnatural things. "For me, when you're talking about RPMs going up and getting more spin rate on a ball and balls are staying up longer and fighting gravity longer because of certain substances, yeah, then it's cheating," he said. "But using something to get a grip on something, it's hard for me to say it's cheating. "If you've pitched with some sort of substance throughout your whole career, I think it's going to have some sort of impact. I think MLB needs to come up with some sort of substance for all the pitchers that adds tack but does not add spin or does something to certain pitches. There's got to be something universal. I think guys are going to struggle mentally with not being able to use something."
It's funny how these pitchers are coming out and admitting they have been cheating all these years. Glasnow blames his UCL injury on the fact he stopped cheating a couple of starts ago.
Signed most, if not all, the players that criticized the Astros for their collectively bargained immunity during the banging scheme investigation.
Should we start an everybody was cheating thread @Buck Turgidson? He's blowing up MLB. Click the first tweet and check out the thread... Astros related...
Gotta love all the Yankees shitheads showing face on the Spaeder Twitter feed trying to discredit him. Bunch of hypocritical, mouth-breathing, ****sticks.
Was there anything new or novel in that chain of tweets? Without hard evidence this gets brushed under the rug, as it was the first time these were mentioned.
Yeah we all know there was rampant cheating but unless a teammate is going to come out and paint the picture none of this really matters.
It is what I have long said.... when I worked for the Astros years ago cheating of all types was rampant and it was often done by guys that no one would suspect. It is just part of the game and it long has been.... players in baseball look for every advantage available. I remember when I was with the Astros and players were getting ADHD medication and became stars, or would take ephedrine in massive amounts because they believed it helped their reaction times and focus. Pitches would take stuff as well and would mess with the balls or catchers would. They would openly talk about it. The guys from the Dominican would be pumped full of horse medication and brag about their new found strength. So hearing Cole sheepishly not say he doesn't cheat..... and hearing Rodon and Glasnow admit they cheat and be defiant about it isn't surprising. It is also why the piling on of the Astros and to some extent the Red Sox was a joke. The Dodgers were caught cheating. Retired players pointed at the Dodgers and Yankees. The Mets and Brewers both accused the Dodgers of cheating. It is all a joke, and it is such a part of the game that the Commissioner doesn't know how to handle it. He tried punishing the Astros to make an example, and then tried to push it under the rug - but his own media force refused. He tried issuing warnings AFTER knowing teams were cheating, hoping it would stop it - it hasn't. He has tried telling the players what he is doing to monitor for cheating - players still do it........ his predecessor knew that steroids and HGH were RAMPANT and ignored it until the media and congress forced action. To this day everyone knows about McGwire and Bonds, but no one knows about Kevin Brown and John Smoltz and a lot of other pitchers (some former Astros) that were taking stuff. Hell the Commissioner decided to "punish" the Braves for their international free agent actions to make an example out of them. He blackballed the former GM. Yet the Dodgers and Cubs can pay players under the table with no problem at all. Those players are still playing and in some cases are young and just now entering their prime. I love the game of baseball, but the truth is that it has never entirely been a fair game.... players and teams cheat. So do owners (ask Tim Raines) but that is another discussion. You have to hope your team is better at cheating than others. Those Cardinal teams under LaRussa that won so many games were VERY effective at having their pitchers cheat. Want to know what PISSES off the Astros about Fiers more than anything? HE CHEATED on the Astros himself, yet turned the Astros organization in for cheating. He used substances that were illegal on the ball. The Braves dynasty and teams that had Orel Hershiser on their coaching staff were really bad about cheating. There were others that were known to do it including Dave Duncan.
This is funny because Josh Reddick was one of the biggest cheaters on the Astros. I guess he figures he already is tarnished and wants other cheaters to suffer. I am waiting for it to come out about the Cubs and all the things they did to cheat under Epstein and his sidekick. Their handling of the international free agent signing period was grossly wrong and cheating, but they get a pass and the Braves are punished.
All this **** just makes baseball an even more apt metaphor for life. Hard to accept, but of all the stories of success being purely the result of hard work and doing the right thing, almost all of it is bullshit. Most of the winners cheated. In baseball and in life.
