OK, Sara: If some idiot wants to set up a fan blog because he loves a certain player and wants him to make the All Star team because it will be an honor to his favorite and a validation for him, there’s nothing wrong with that. When I was 13, I would have done that for Eddie Bressoud (who finally DID make the team, in 1964, thank God.) Surely you can see the ethical difference between that and the person who wants to promote a player’s candidacy because it will embarrass the sport? It’s not just results that matter; motive is part of the equation too. I might think a fan who thinks PEDs don’t matter promoting Manny because he’s “the best right-handed power hitter of his generation” is wrong in almost every way possible and insensitive to valid principles of fairness and honesty, but his ACTION is sincere, honest, and loyal. Just dumb.

Jason has been pretty clear about his motives, I’d say. I have no problem with his primary objective at all. His strategic objective…marring the All-Star game as a means to get baseball’s attention, electing a player, not because he is deserving but because he isn’t, is what’s wrong.

Parker and Gooden’s substance abuse and legal problems only hurt their performance and careers—-I have never said that problems like this should make a player ineligible as an All-Star. I have come to believe that Perry’s use of the spitball should have gotten him suspended or bounced…for whatever reason (nostalgia, novelty), Gaylord’s spitters were regarded at the time as kind of cute. We learn. He never should have been an All-Star, but I hardly regard the games he played in as retroactively sullied

Manny is in an entirely different category. Lumping him (or Bonds, or Clemens) with players like Cobb or the boozing stars of yesteryear just blurs the issues, presumably intentionally.

I truly don’t understand your La Russa arguments at all. And electing a player in spite of his misconduct is 180% different from electing a player BECAUSE of his misconduct.

The more I read the so-called defenses of Jason’s site (and I am absolutely sure he didn’t give the ethical implications a moment’s thought, which is normal), the more I’m convinced that it’s not defensible, because you guys are tying yourselves up in knots. Obviously an “Elect Milledge” campaign has no weight, because it is a joke. A website to promote anorexia is unethical, because there are vulnerable young girls who will read it, follow it, and it has a good chance of making them sick. A website advocating using squirrels as toilet tissue to save the environment is just satire. It places the squirrels in no danger.

Throwing a skunk into a picnic [ Pinic= All Star Game; Skunk = Manny ]to argue for a better picnic is just per se wrong when lots of people enjoy the picnic and are perfectly happy with it as it is…UNLESS 1) the intended reform is important enough to outweigh all the innocent people who are annoyed, inconvenienced, etc. 2)that is really the motivation, and not personal benefit 3)there is a substantial likelihood that the end result will be the desired reform, and not just the ruination of one picnic.

So the defense I read consists of:

- He’s not throwing a skunk in a picnic, just suggesting it would be funny if someone did. This is obviously untrue: he has taken steps toward coordinating the skunk throwing.

- The picnic has always had skunks. This is disingenuous—-obviously Jason knows Manny is an uber-skunk, or he wouldn’t be doing this.

- He has a right to throw a skunk in the picnic. Sure. That doesn’t mean it’s a fair or responsible thing to do.

—Everybody throws skunks in picnics these days. The Worst Defense Ever.

- It’s not going to work anyway, because Manny won’t play. Fine, but that’s not a defense of the plan. If Manny doesn’t play, then there’s no skunk, there’s no real disruption, and there’s no reform.

—“Who are you to criticize?” Everybody should make judgements about whether conduct is right or wrong, and speak up about it. Sorry if that spoils some people’s “fun,” but that’s how we set societal standards.

Craig’s “he’s a friend, and I was just cheering the fact that he’s getting some publicity for this” is the best argument, which is ironic since this is what prompted my original post. Cutting a friend some slack is natural, and I’m sorry, Craig, if I misunderstood.

I’m somewhat stunned you feel this way, frankly. Sure, labeling something doesn’t make it so. Not labeling doesn’t make it less so,either, but it sure makes it harder to identify what it is. You will be relieved to know that I won’t rehash the steroid arguments. But I am confident that a solid majority (and if not, a rational minority) of the public believes that cheating is wrong, breaking the law is wrong, using banned substances to acquire multi-million dollar contracts is wrong, lying is wrong, and a player recently caught at all of the above is no All-Star. That any of that should be the least controversial is profoundly depressing, and if an intelligent commentator like you really sees “no evidence’ that steroids threaten the game, that is just tragic.

Sure, it’s wrong. And baseball adopted some rules and penalties for it. Those rules and penalties don’t include and exclusion from All-Star eligibility, however, so a vote for Manny is not, even according to Major League Baseball—which itself purports to care very deeply about steroids—illegitimate.  If you nonetheless believe a vote for Manny is illegitamate, then your faith and love in the All-Star game should already be betrayed by his very presence on the ballot, rendering your arguments against Jason’s efforts meaningless. 

And let me alleve your feelings of tragedy: I too think steroids are harmful and destructive and should be driven from the game.  My “no evidence” statement, however, was not directed at arguments that say steroids are a threat.  Indeed, I think (and have written) that they threaten players’ health and to some degree—though the exact degree we simply can’t ascertain at present and probably ever—they threaten to harm competitive integrity.

What I said was that I don’t think that they threaten to “ruin” the goodness” of the game, defined as turning fans off of it in anything approaching significant numbers, rendering the efforts of clean players meaningless, or otherwise destroying baseball in a way that so many commenters have claimed.  It’s a problem for baseball in the same way Venezuela is a problem for United States policy. Troublesome. If left unchecked possibly seriously troublesome. But by no means a terminal threat.

Ultimately, you must admit that you’re arguing for a blackballing of baseball players over and above what the rules of baseball call for.  That’s a legitimate position to take, but by no means should it be accepted on faith, and it does not seem to me anyway that it’s a position from which we should begin when assessing ideas like Jason’s.

I agree that is Jason’s point.

As for the ballots, I’d guess that online votes—the kind he’s encouraging with the embedded link on his site—account for many times more than the paper ballots from ballparks and supermarkets or wherever. They certainly could have changed those.

Just an outsider’s point of view after reading all 3 pages of these comments:

1.) I hate Manny. Always have. Steroids have nothing to do with it. Being a Yankee fan and a baseball fan are that reason. And yes, I laughed my ass off the day he was busted.

2.) I support Jason’s blog for the reasons he intended, which have been restated here many times so no need to respond.

3.) Although Jason requested to keep the personal attacvks out of the debate, I disagree to this extent:  Jack, you are a douchebag.  Anyway you cut it.  Cut out your hippy, old man drama. Stop comparing this to politics, law, DUI, anorexia, Peter Rose, Joe Jackson, blah blah blah.  Stop being such a douche. Jason had an opinion and shared it.  So did you.  Only difference is that his made sense to many people, in the know, and it started a great debate.  I’m sick of reading your posts because you are a fool, who probably thinks he has never been wrong in his life.  You want to go on a rant, start your own blog.  Earn the respect Jason and Craig have for their numerous contributions to our entertainment.  Go start your own blog and see if anyone gives a crap.  Let me know when the AP picks up your stories and ESPN invites you to be on the radio.  You can undermine a shout out from Buster Olney, but if that happened to me, I would find myself more than slightly erect.  So chill out, acknowledge other people may be right for once if they disagree with you, and just try for one day to not be a douchebag.

Thank you all for your time and to Jason and Craig, keep up the GREAT work!

Raising an interesting ethical question, how do you respond civilly to a comment like that? I can’t really quibble that the person who makes a douchebaggy argument isn’t probably a douchebag—-what exactly IS a douchebaggy argument? Anyway, Marc, for the record, I have a regularly updated ethics website, it does quite well, thanks; it has been “called out” by MSNBC, CNN, PBS, NPR, Fox, “O” Magazine and lots of local stations and papers, not that that makes my opinion better (or worse) than yours. And I’m sure I’m wrong quite often. My objective is to get people to at least think about all the ethical implications of what they do, and if that’s too douchebaggy for you, tough.

Fair enough.
But I thought only old hippies fantasized about Peter Gammons.

and this concludes the bickering and yelling segment of the show.