selig warming up to idea of rose in hof?

If you are betting on your team to win the game, those two should be the same 99.999% of the time.

I just think you really have to stretch your imagination to come up with scenarios where something that is done "to win this game I have money on" is not "the best action to take in this situation." Guys bang into walls and make diving catches, risking injury "to make this particular play." It's what athletes do.

Other than the already-discussed "may aggravate an injury" . . . what else is there where you would do something that would increase your chances of losing a game but would be "the best action to take" anyway?

 

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the effects of gambling on the human mind. It's not an exercise in rationality.

 

Usually, they're guilty as hell.

 

Do you rest a starter who has played in a ton of games and its a day game coming off an extra innings night game? If you've used your best reliever in three straight games, do you use him in a fourth because you have $1,000 on the line?

 

If your logic is that he should be in the Hall because he is the all-time hits leader, then you better also make room for the 3rd highest batting average of all time.

And in a few years, the all time home run leader and no. 9 of the all time wins list.

 

I'm kind of fond of the tongue-in-cheek argument that he shouldn't be in the hall because he's the all-time outs leader.

 

I don't see how having money on the game makes any difference.

If your player really needs a rest and is dragging . . . then you have a better chance of winning if he doesn't play. So the decision is the same. E

If your reliever is tired, his chances of performing well in a fourth game in a row likely are low. So you do not play him. The decision is the same.

I know the temptation is to press the Easy Button and bring in the closer again. But that doesn't mean a smart manager with money on the game would do that. And just because you don't have money on the game doesn't mean you won't press the Easy Button anyway. Just ask Gene Mauch in 1964.


You can overthink this in the other direction, too.

Last month Girardi sat A-Rod for the Yankees' first game in South Florida . . . which happens to be A-Rod's back yard.

Reason cited was "fatigue". Odd, seeing as A-Rod started the season five weeks after everyone else. So why did he sit? Was it the best decision to make? Did the thousands of fans who came expecting to see A-Rod agree that it was the best decision?

 

The point is it has the potential to make one game more important to the manager than another. The manager has to be playing with the good of the team for the entire season in mind and Rose's ability to do that was compromised.

 

Sorry, but this type of thinking is very naive.

A 162 basball season is a marathon, sometimes you make decisons that our best for your season rather than best for winning 1 game. This is not the playoffs. If you have a money on a particular game you may do things that you would not normally do at the expense of your teams long term gain or at the expense of a players long term health.

 

I agree on the logic of that . . . but as with the NFL coach who rests his starters because the playoffs are clinched, I think it's wrong.

"We did not try to win that game, fans, and I know you wanted to see Peyton at QB, and I know you paid an average of $75 apiece to see the slop we put out there today . . . but gosh darn he MIGHT have gotten hurt. And we have the playoffs to think about."

That offends me a lot more than someone who "tried too hard" to win a game. Guess it shouldn't. But it does.

 

How would you feel if the coach played Peyton, not because he thought it was in the best interests of the Colts, but because he owed a gambler 10 grand and had bet 15 grand on the game?

 

Do you really think Rose did something like that? Chances are, he decided to bet on games shortly before they began. If he had a good hunch, or inside information, that led him to believe his team had an extra chance of winning, that's when I would guess he bet. I doubt, in a game that is played daily, not weekly, that something would come up to influence his decision.