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. Avoiding arrest |
| In 1919, notorious headhunting pitcher Carl Mays of the Boston Red Sox got annoyed with one particularly unruly fan in Philadelphia. Mays took out his annoyance by whipping a baseball into the stands, hitting the fan. A warrant was quickly issued for the arrest of Mays. Red Sox management was not about to leave Mays' fate in the hands of the Philadelphia authorities. They snuck him out of town, thereby apparently abetting in the avoidance of his arrest. Then the Boston club quickly traded Mays to the New York Yankees. (Scheinin, p. 141) |
| 2. Ump intimidation |
The following is a quote from American League umpire Joe Rue from the 1930s. I've been mobbed, cussed, booed, kicked in the ass, punched in the face, hit with mud balls and whiskey bottles, and had everything from shoes to fruits and vegetables thrown at me. I've been hospitalized with a concussion and broken ribs. I've been spit on with lime and water.There are hundreds of other examples in which umpires were mentally and physically abused by fans, players and coaches. In fact, several interesting cartoons have been published depicting this sort of umpire abuse in newspapers from the late 1800s on into the first half of the 20th century. (Scheinin, pp. 200) |