Could baseball be fixed?

Published 5:10 am Wednesday, May 27, 2009

By By Chandler Myers
Baseball has forever been “America’s Pastime” and it always will be.
Steroids put a damper on the sport because a certain few decided to cheat their teammates, opponents, coaches and fans, but when it is all said and done, baseball is still our nation’s baby.
What if steriods were not the major issue?What if another trend was stealing baseball’s glory? What if gambling cause the baseball world to fall into question? And dare it be said that someone decided to throw the mother of them all, the World Series?
Imagine the possiblities of how simple it could be if a group of people got together and decided to fix the whole thing.
It would have to start after the playoffs take place. Lets name the teams that make the Series, the Illinois Blacksheep and the Cincy Nobodys.
Next, the bookies do the unthinkable and coerce a certain amount of players into the scheme by promising them payment.
For the sake of the argument, lets say they find six players on the favored Blacksheep that agree not to play to the best of their ablities to tilt the scales in the others teams favor.
Of those six players, two are pitchers, two are infielders and two are outfielders that way you have the best chance for someone to mess up somewhere in the field.
After the players are bought, the next step is to start taking bets from unknowing bettors that think the heavily favored Blacksheep will crush the Nobodys from Cincy.
The bookies taking the bets in turn put all of their money on the Nobodys knowing that they are going to overcome the odds and win.
With the two pitchers in their pockets, the bookies and their backer sit back and watch them give up hit after hit in the games they pitch.
In the field, the two infielders and two outfielders make it look good, but they just do not make the plays like the should.
So the first two games are a wash as the Nobodys pick up the wins.
To keep the suspicions of a fix low and the odds uneven, the bookies give the Blacksheep the word to try and win the next two games, which should be easy seeing they are the favorite.
Games 3 and 4 show the Blacksheep that everyone knows. They hit the ball well and make no errors in the field.
So, the Blacksheep and Nobodys are tied two games apiece in the World Series with everyone thinking that the Blacksheep are going to comeback.
In games 5 and 6, the two pitchers involved in the fix are back on the mound.
They make their efforts look strong just like their cohorts and fall in those two games to lose the series.
The bookies and their backers make a killing, while the people betting for the Blacksheep lose their shirts.
The Blacksheep meanwhile get rewarded handsomly for their deception.
What if that happened? Could that happen?
The answer to those questions is it already has and no probably not again.
In 1920, eight members of the Chicago White Sox were thrown out of baseball for life for fixing the World Series.
I read about the events in a book called “Eight Men Out,” which explained everything in great detail.
It is a really great book that I would suggest to anyone interested in the history of the MLB.
It is highly unlikely that the Series could be fixed again because people have a hard enough time keeping their mouth shut these days.
Someone could try and maybe have it thrown, but in the end they would get caught.
Hopefully, people will continue to respect the game and not cause such a castrophy. Only time will tell.
Chandler Myers is sports editor of the Atmore Advance. He can be reached at 368-2123 or by e-mail at sports@atmoreadvance.com

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