Lew Burdette

Lew Burdette

Is this false?

This comment by someone responding to my Gaylord Perry thread?

"Gaylord Perry didn't cheat in every game or with every pitch. Lew Burdette always said, after he retired, that he didn't cheat, not much anyway, but he let people think he did because it gave him a psychological advantage. Once them 'roids is in your body, everything you do on the field is cheating. Once you bet on baseball, you've broken the one and only rule baseball has for which you can be banned permanently. Stealing signs is "cheating", too, but surely you can see the difference."

I don't buy this - It's very easy to doctor the ball and not get caught. Rogers was able to cheat throughout the entire postseason, and wasn't caught till the end, and STILL denies cheating. Whitey Ford cheated vastly at the end of his career. If doctoring the ball was so easy to catch, it wouldn't be done often, period. The comparison to stealking signs is laughable, since it has no effect on a pitchers or batters stats.

Stealing signs has no effect, are you serious??? Think about it, a player is way more likely to hit a pitch if they know its coming. The easiest example of this is a changeup because it is effective almost entirely due to deception. If a guy knows he's getting a changeup instead of a fastball he knows to wait on it when otherwise he might of been way out in front. I do agree that a guy who takes steroids is cheating on every play while a pitcher doctoring the ball doesn't happen on every pitch he throws. They are both cheating and both still happen, but I don't put doctoring the ball or stealing signs on the same level as using steroids. I guess I would have to say this is false due to the comments on betting though. In no way is this even close to using steroids or even stealing signs. I know its a taboo thing and every player is told not to do it, but I don't know why it carries such a severe penalty when it doesn't affect the outcome of the game the other three can.