Gambling on baseball

I was struck by a line in this article.

Pete Rose Is Finally Out of Second Chances

Quote :

Rose did bet on the Reds while as a player, always to win, but nonetheless the bets were made

Quote :

Since baseball has come to be, people with functional brains have known that gambling is the worst act you can commit as someone in MLB's employ

What is the problem? I can understand betting against your team being bad - you might be tempted to do something to throw the game. But betting to win? Aren't you supposed to be trying to win? Aren't you just putting your money where your mouth is?

Why is this "the worst act you can commit"?

These people are jocks; they're not required to make sense.
Another question: who really cares?

Sports Commissioners care because it damages the image they're always trying to portray that professional sports aren't already rigged.

That's a bit overly-cynical even for you, NoCo. You really think all professional sports are rigged?

Yep.  To one degree or another.

Baseball, football, basketball, the Tour De France, horse racing, all crooked as a dog's hind leg.

Soccer, weightlifting, archery, sumo, skeet, dirt bike racing maybe not so much.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Baseball, football, basketball, the Tour De France, horse racing, all crooked as a dog's hind leg.

Really? And how is, for example, professional basketball crooked?

That is a meaningless article.
They provide gross statistics without providing margin of error.
They compare college basketball to the NBA. Meaningless.

You really think an NBA player making fifteen million dollars a year is going to shave points and risk it all? Yes, most players make significantly less than that, but they also have almost no chance of intentionally affecting the outcome of the game.

The article is based on the point spread, which is not part of the game, but is a creation of professional gamblers, who have great interest in publishing an invalid point spread.

You'll have to do better than that.

Same methodology that cracked the sumo cheating scheme.

You can choose to ignore the evidence if you want.

Show me some evidence, not supposition and hypothesis.
I'm not saying no one cheats, just that I haven't seen anything to support it.

One referee convicted of illegal gambling doesn't really lead me to "all professional sports are rigged."

Yee gads you're not easily satisfied.
http://sportsfraud.blogspot.com/2013/12/college-and-professional-sports-are_14.html

Are you fucking kidding me? Now you're just posting links to silly stuff.

Yes of course. When a major multi-billion dollar industry is crooked there should be numerous public internet articles describing the fix in detail. How silly of me.

Now you're talking about the industry being crooked. That may not be the same as the games being fixed. I haven't made an assertion one way or the other about the industry. I certainly assume that when huge money is involved there will be some hinky stuff going on. But I will reserve judgement on games being rigged until I see some solid facts. Did you read the article at the last link you posted? The bit about Planet X destroying the solar system? Or his claim that conspiracy theorists are "more sane" than other people? Shit like that makes me wonder about anything else he may say. I don't care about opinions; I need facts to make judgements.

Okay believe whatever you want to believe. You can believe the athletes in the Olympics are all amateurs, you can believe professional wrestling is real, you can believe the female orgasms in porn are not faked.

You can believe the moon landing was faked, the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot are real and Obama is a Kenyan.

You can believe Nixon was not a crook. Wait, maybe that's going too far.

I haven't stated what, if anything, I believe. Your rant is misplaced.

I'm just saying expecting professional sports to self-police is somewhat naive.

That isn't at all what you said, nor did I mention that.

Right you are. Fuck specificity and accuracy! They're no fun.