My 'Boys were Alive and Kicking - SD is out - GB down - NY for the win!!!

[GlassJaw]

To use a dramatically hyperbolic example, it would be as if the NFL banned the use of black laces with white shoes, someone being punished for an infraction, and then afterwards saying, "Are the days gone when cheating was bad, no matter how small it was?"

LOL, the NFL has pretty much done this many times. Players getting fine for uniform infractions is pretty commonplace. I think I recall an incident where a player wanted to pay tribute to another player by putting his number of the sleeve of his jersey (I'm not be recalling the exact situation but it was something to this effect). Well the NFL fined the player. No good deed goes unpunished in the NFL.

 

[Crothian]

If the cheating affects the outcome of games, it's the bad kind. Spygate was akin to jaywalking. Technically against the law but who cares?

It shows the character of the people involved. In other walks of life outside of sports there is a well founded no tolerance of cheating. Many schools don't put up with it and expel people for it. I know in gaming I would kick out a cheater from my group even if it was akin to jaywalking.

However, as we are finding out cheating has a long and glorious history in sports. If you aren't cheating you aren't trying.

 

[Crothian]

LOL, the NFL has pretty much done this many times. Players getting fine for uniform infractions is pretty commonplace. I think I recall an incident where a player wanted to pay tribute to another player by putting his number of the sleeve of his jersey (I'm not be recalling the exact situation but it was something to this effect). Well the NFL fined the player. No good deed goes unpunished in the NFL.

When John Unitas died Petyon Manning asked the league's permission to wear the signature high tops and was told no so he didn't do it. The QB for Baltimore at the time just went ahead and did it or something similar and was fined for it. That might be what you are thinking of.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

It shows the character of the people involved.

See, I thought the same thing when nobody on the Pats team groused about the infraction, knowing full well that everybody does it, took their lumps in the media, paid the fine with no contest and no comment, and just moved on to dominate the season.

 

[GlassJaw]

It shows the character of the people involved. In other walks of life outside of sports there is a well founded no tolerance of cheating. Many schools don't put up with it and expel people for it. I know in gaming I would kick out a cheater from my group even if it was akin to jaywalking.

So you never jaywalked before?

I would equate jaywalking in D&D to someone who has read the Monster Manual tell other players in the group the monster's AC or something like that at the table.

You would kick that player out of your group?

 

[Crothian]

So you never jaywalked before?

Nope, I've seen to many blood on the pavement videos.

I would equate jaywalking in D&D to someone who has read the Monster Manual tell other players in the group the monster's AC or something like that at the table.

You would kick that player out of your group?

No, but I'd change the AC and tell him to stop doing it or he would be out.

However, I think what the Patriots did was a little worse then jaywalking.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

No, but I'd change the AC and tell him to stop doing it or he would be out.

Are the days gone when cheating was bad, no matter how small it was?

 

[Crothian]

Are the days gone when cheating was bad, no matter how small it was?

I doubt it. I hear Vegas still takes it seriously.

Edit: But friends that cheat in pointless games I play and cheaters of organized national sport teams of a Billion dollar industry are not remotely the same thing.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Are the days gone when cheating was bad, no matter how small it was?

Hey now, its not fair to turn my words again Crothian. You're supposed to turn them against ME!

I guess I don't really have a point other than it really does bother me, though. Crothian put it well when he said that we don't tolerate cheating in other aspects of life. That, combined with the "everyone else is doing it so we have to to keep up" mentality just...gets to me.

I don't hate the Pats and I'm not really even sure I'd support taking away their wins. But the comparison to jaywalking doesn't even really fit, nor anything involving the uniform violations. I'm not sure I can come up with a real comparison, myself. Its just that the video taping does have a chance to affect the actual game, even if it didn't. The problem is you can't prove whether it did or not, as its just one of those things that'll be left up in the air.

So many I shouldn't have said anything at all, as I'm not Pat hating or anything like that. It just bothers me and I do wonder if I'm the only one to feel like this about it.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

In an abstract sense, is there a difference (in sports or otherwise) between breaking a rule and cheating? I mean, in football, every single time a penalty is called, that means a player broke the rules, right? In addition to in game penalties, it seems quite a few players get fined for infractions as well. Are they all "cheaters"? Or did they break rules and get the appropriate penalty for it?

I mean you can claim that any given late hit or holding call was accidental on the part of the penalized player, but then, you can claim that a coach misinterpreted the rules of where you could or couldn't tape from, too.

Is there a rules infraction which does not make the person who did it a cheater? Is it accepting cheating to say yes, or demeaning "real" cheating* by saying no?

*A bit of personal perspective on this, not precisly an argument, so feel free to ignore : [sblock]My highschool was fairly well known for wrestling - several state or regional championships under the same coach, lots of community pride, etc etc. Then they were caught cheating. And when I say cheating, I mean that at a home match, the team's recorded weigh ins, observed by the coach and under the responsibility of the assistant principal in charge of athletics, were 10 to 15 lbs lower than their weights when another team politely asked them to repeat those in public. It was a scandal, it was the end of a couple of careers, and it very much tainted past championships. In my mind, the taping incident with the Pats simply doesn't register in the same way. They observed something they were allowed to observe, but in a particular way that had been disallowed. I feel like some folks want it to be in the same dynasty tarnishing category as the weigh in scandal of my youth and that just doesn't click for me. [/sblock]