Want to play the "Baseball Ethics" game? Two randomly selected actual ethical incidents from baseball's storied history are listed below. Please tell us which one you consider to be "worse." In other words, select the one you think is less ethical than the other. As more people vote, each incident will, over time, develop its own winning percentage. When voting is complete, the full list of 133 incidents will be listed from "best" to "worst" on the Hardball Times site.
You can read more about the American Studies course at Carleton College that covered this ethics project in this article. The entire bibliography of sources is on this page.
Here are your first two choices. Select the less ethical one and you'll be given the opportunity to make even more choices. Thanks for helping.
| 1. Religious objections |
| It was in 1960 that Chicago White Sox owner, showman Bill Veeck, brought an exploding scoreboard to Comiskey Park. Hidden inside the myriad of lights was a clever, if secret, sign-stealing scheme. An obscure flashing red light in the upper right-hand corner of the scoreboard was used to flash the pitch type to the batter. White Sox pitcher Al Worthington, a born-again Christian, thought the little operation was immoral, and told his manager that it had to stop or he would quit the team. (Worthington, along with his wife, had found religion after attending a Billy Graham meeting in 1958). Worthington eventually left the team. It turned out that a year earlier, when Worthington had been a Giant, he had a similar experience. Worthington apparently had told Giants manager Bill Rigney that players had no need "to lie or cheat in the world if they trust Jesus Christ." There was no language in baseball's official rulebook at the time that forbade stealing signs with binoculars or telescopes, though no teams advertised taking part in this sleazy practice. Worthington's major league career ended soon thereafter. Explained White Sox executive Hank Greenberg, "We tried to sell him (Worthington), but the word was out that he was some sort of cuckoo." The use of electronic equipment to steal signs was banned in 1961. (Dickson, p. 104; Zumsteg, p. 37; Devaney; Cook) |
| 2. Otis' admission |
| Amos Otis stole 341 bases in his 17-year career before retiring in 1984. Otis, known more for his speed than power, did manage to sock 193 homeruns. Later, he admitted that he had cheated by stuffing both cork and super balls into his bat throughout his long Major League tenure, mostly with the Royals. "I had enough cork and Super Balls in there to blow away anything," Otis later said. "Over my career, it probably meant 193 home runs for me." There are many other examples in which players used cork, or superballs, illegally in their bats. But Otis may be the only player known to have admitted to using both. (Gutman, p. 70.) |