Cleveland Sports Forum

OK, I failed again. But the link at the bottom of the above post will take you there, Lou!

This one ...

https://twitter.com/Indians/status/877949833427865601

I love the comment from the Indians twitter.

@Indians
Best statistics among AL third basemen.
Best strut among all humans on Earth.

LOL!

Here's a direct link:

https://www.facebook.com/Indians/videos ... 054969521/

Note to SEAGULL: At the end of the video, they encourage you to vote 35 times. No mention of age restrictions!

I am so glad you posted that link, J.R. The video at your link is so much better.

(It's the exact same, that's just me being a smart ass)

Personally, I think the system stinks. The old way was best. Managers and players only determine all stars. They know best. Too often, popular players have average to below average first halves and still make the team, while other players outperform but don't even get a whiff at alternate status. If they want to let the fans vote, do it right. ONE VOTE! I wish I had 35 votes for President of the United States

Since I've never voted online, I wonder how they control how many times you vote? Do they use your IP address? What's to keep you from using more than one device with different ones, then?

Hillbilly wrote:I am so glad you posted that link, J.R. The video at your link is so much better.

(It's the exact same, that's just me being a smart ass)

From your comments, I thought you weren't able to post it, so I was trying to help. Didn't click on the link.

Why don't they let donkeys into Harvard?

joez wrote:Personally, I think the system stinks. The old way was best. Managers and players only determine all stars. They know best. Too often, popular players have average to below average first halves and still make the team, while other players outperform but don't even get a whiff at alternate status. If they want to let the fans vote, do it right. ONE VOTE! I wish I had 35 votes for President of the United States

But people complained that since the game was for the fans, they should have a say in who plays. Even if a popular great player is having a poor year, the fans still want to see him.

Make All-Star voting more American!
Jul 3, 2013


Last week, the Supreme Court struck down key elements of the Voting Rights Act. If only the justices would have ruled on the All-Star Game voting process, too.


The All-Star vote ends Thursday, the Fourth of July. And 11 score and 17 years after our forefathers declared their independence from the tyranny of King George and guaranteed every American a voice in who is elected to the Mid-Summer Classic, it's clear that the voting system is rife with abuse. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington surely are hanging their heads so low in shame that it's a wonder they don't trip during the Washington Nationals presidents race.

For instance …

At a recent Seattle Mariners game, the P.A. announcer encouraged fans to visit a special booth where they could vote multiple times for the All-Star team. Further, if they voted at least 10 times for an exclusively Mariners slate of candidates, they would receive a special gift.

This combines the worst of modern politics -- hard-core, extreme partisanship with the corruption of vote buying. Not that it has had any noticeable effect; not a single Seattle player is among the top six vote-getters at any position. The Mariners are sort of the Whig Party of All-Star politics -- they haven't been relevant on the ballot for a while.


But the Mariners are merely one example of attempted voter influencing. The Chicago Cubs sent out a text recently informing fans that they could vote 35 times for the All-Star team in just five minutes. Thirty-five times? Not even dead Cook County citizens vote that many times in an election.

And that's nothing compared to the campaigns to elect David Wright at third base. WFAN radio hosts Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton are offering one free ticket to a New York Mets game (plus bus transportation) to fans who can prove they voted at least one thousand times for Wright. They also have set up a "sweatshop" at the radio studio, with 25 women attempting to punch the ballot for Wright 70,000 times.

The Mets also briefly reached out to CougarLife.com, a dating website dedicated to older women seeking younger men, to solicit even more votes for Wright. I'm surprised the Mets didn't combine forces with Esiason and Carton by having them hire Annie Savoy to supervise their sweatshop.

Hey, Wright is a great player, and I hope he makes the team. But whatever happened to the concept of "one man, one vote"?

In the old days, you had to earn the right to vote. You couldn't just repeatedly and endlessly vote for your favorite player by setting up so many email accounts on so many systems (your office computer, plus your laptop, smart phone and tablet, along with your spouse's laptop, smart phone and tablet) that not even the National Security Agency could keep track of them all.


Back in those days, if you wanted to stuff the ballot box, you had to literally stuff it. You had to track down ballots -- and if you didn't live near a major league ballpark, that could be a real chore -- then methodically punch out your selections one by one. It was slow and tedious and all the punched-out chads covering your body made it look like you had the world's worst case of dandruff. But the effort showed you cared.

Now, it's just too easy to vote. Worse, it's too easy to abuse the vote.

The first fix for this is to reduce the times a fan can vote on-line. Thirty-five times? That's unnecessarily high. This doesn't increase participation; it just increases the number of total votes for Greg Dobbs.

Next, limit "Sweatshop" voting practices. It's not only wrong, but the sweat makes the ballots droopy and hard to read.

Third, teams must stop encouraging fans to submit a partisan slate of ballots by offering free merchandise and making constant appeals. It's bad enough that we have partisan media outlets telling Americans what political candidate they should elect. We shouldn't be extending that practice to our country's Midsummer Classic. Fans should vote their conscience, not what their local team tells them. (Especially if that team has a losing record.)

After all, it's the All-Star Game, not the Only-The-Stars-(And-Many-Non-Stars)-From-My-Team Game.

And finally, here is the best way to discourage ballot abuse: If someone can prove you voted 1,000 times for David Wright or any other player, then the NSA will hunt you down and make you take free tickets to TWO Mets games.

My Hyde has shown up this evening. You never know which one when Bauer is pitching.

Wow, they are really teeing off on him tonight!

Just have to get another dependable starter. Tomlin, Bauer, and Clevinger are all way too inconsistent.

I'm not making excuses for Bauer, cause he is the dumb ass that threw a high fastball to Dozier when everyone in the league knows that's his happy zone. No excuse for him. But I will say this umpire is horrible.

And Bauer is the type of guy who will purposely throw the high fastball to Dozier. Let's see if you can hit mine. Total flake. Kevin Costner from Tin Cup. Own worst enemy. 20 million dollar arm, 10 cent brain. And he thinks he's so smart. That's why you can't coach him. He thinks he knows more than everyone else.

Yeah, I remember a couple starts ago, he wasn't getting the call on pitches that were just wide of the plate, but he kept on throwing them, hoping the ump wold change his mind.

We need to break through against this guy!