Hairyducked Idiot

right and it's certainly reasonable to say that paterno had a moral failing in not following up with mcqueary and/or the administration to get more facts, or to press the parties to get the university police involved. i'm not going to argue that. i'm arguing with kyle's assertions that have been either factually wrong or making assumptions that are based on nothing. What is your assumption that the GA withheld details from Paterno based on?

that is not a reasonable response. there are thousands of people in the state college area whose livelihood depends on the football program. it would be extraordinarily stupid to harm all of those people because a small handful of administrators and coaches acted improperly. you get rid of the people involved (which will end up including the president of the university, the guy who oversees the entire athletic department, and the head coach of the football program), you take steps to ensure that something like this never happens again, and you move on from there. If you want to make sure something like this never happens again, you have to set an example. The next time a coach has a chance to carry water for his buddy and allow terrible things to happen, I don't want them remembering that all that happened was that Paterno was allowed to gracefully retire.

no, that's wrong. the grad assistant was interviewed by the AD and some other administrator. what appears to have happened, and what nobody is alleging didn't happen, is that the grad assistant told the coach (who again, is a conservative old man and coaching icon) that there was inappropriate sexual conduct between a former coach and a young boy. the coach relayed this information to the AD, who then interviewed the grad assistant about what he witnessed. the AD and other administrator are being prosecuted because they repeatedly claimed that they did not know the seriousness of what had occurred, which the grand jury did not find credible given the testimony of the grad assistant and what he claimed he told them during his interview with them. there is plenty to criticize about joe paterno's actions without making things up or assuming things that are unlikely to be true. Damn your fanboy apologies for forcing me to go back to the grand jury report. The grand jury report is quite specific. It describes in detail what the GA saw. It then clearly states that he "reported what he had seen" to Paterno. There is nothing in the grand jury report that says that the grad assistant described it as "inappropriate sexual contact" or that he spared Paterno the details. That is something that PSU fanboys have made up as a possible explanation to try and explain the discrepancy between the grad assistant "reported what he had seen" and Paterno reporting to the AD that the GA had seen "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature." Somewhere along the line, it got changed from a graphic description of anal rape to "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature." There are two people who could have made that change. Paterno clearly had means and motive, so it's not reckless to speculate whether he was the one who made the change.

You are right that it's not similar. The Baylor coach defamed a dead person to cover up his own NCAA violations. The Penn State coach at best passively allowed a predatory pedophile to continue to use his reputation as a former PSU coach to lure children into his clutches. If the NCAA decides it doesn't have jurisdiction, the university itself should shut down the football program.

(a) he didn't report it to the AD and the president. he reported it verbally to the AD, who along with another administrator interviewed the grad assistant (mcqueary). they subsequently spoke to the president. (b) paterno has said that he didn't know the exact nature of the sexual abuse, which seems logical to me - when you're talking to a conservative old man/coaching icon, do you tell him that you saw inappropriate sexual contact between sandusky and a minor, or do you tell him that you saw sandusky anally penetrating a young boy? i suspect it is the former, which is what paterno testified to in front of the grand jury. neither mcqueary nor curley has claimed that paterno knew more than what he let on. what kyle said above (about downgrading the seriousness of the allegations) is just making [expletive] up that is based on nothing whatsoever. You're right on point A, I apologize. I get a little sick of reading the grand jury report so I was going from memory on that one. On point B, that's one possible explanation. In the eyes of anyone who isn't a fan of PSU, it's the least plausible one, but that's fine. The explanation I presented is equally possible and seems a lot more plausible to me. Assuming the grand jury report is true, then it is indisputable that in the game of telephone from GA > Coach > Higher-ups, the description of the incident became euphamized. There are only two points in the chain that it could have happened. We have no evidence for either, only speculation, but that leaves a 50% chance that what happened is the version that makes Paterno an actively terrible person instead of just a negligently terrible person.

Okay, death penalty for both of them. Win-win.

A child was raped by a former football coach in the football facility's shower room. A graduate assistant in the football program, the football head coach and the athletic director at best passively allowed this man to continue his predatory rape and abuse of children, and possibly helped cover it up. This man continued to have access to the football facilities. But this has nothing to do with the football program.

And Paterno didn't literally enable a child rapist, and there isn't literally a plausible case that Paterno actively covered up for him by downgrading the seriousness of the allegations when he reported it to the AD and President. Oh wait, those are both literally true. I have been looking for some details of what Paterno told the AD and it wasn't in the deposition on ESPN. What did he say that downgraded the seriousness? The grand jury's report describes what the GA saw in rather graphic detail that I'd rather not retype. Then it says that the GA "reported what he had seen" to Paterno at the coach's home the morning after it happened. Paterno then told the AD and President the report, but changed it to "fondling or something of a sexual nature," according to the grand jury report. So we are left with a few possibilities. 1) The G.A. did a poor job of explaining to Paterno what he saw. 2) Paterno was carrying water for his friend by changing what the G.A. saw to something that sounds a little less serious. 3) The Grand Jury report was wrong. We don't have enough evidence to know which of the three it is, but No. 2 sounds awfully plausible to me.

And Paterno didn't literally enable a child rapist, and there isn't literally a plausible case that Paterno actively covered up for him by downgrading the seriousness of the allegations when he reported it to the AD and President. Oh wait, those are both literally true.

lol I know, I know, your football coach, AD and president let a predatory pedofile wander around with only a token attempt to stop him from his continued molestation and rape of children. That's not really *that* bad, is it? And they let him use his reputation, which was gained completely thru his connection to PSU, to do it. It's really a funny situation. But they did take away his shower key and made him promise not to do it on campus facilities. Above and beyond the call of duty, imo.

lol I know, I know, your football coach, AD and president let a predatory pedofile wander around with only a token attempt to stop him from his continued molestation and rape of children. That's not really *that* bad, is it?

Give the man credit. It would have been easy to rest on his laurels after Ramirez left town, but he's keeping his eye on the prize. Starlin Castro and Matt Garza, you are on notice.

That was the comp I was thinking about. Bliss accused his murdered player of being a drug dealer to hide the fact that he was paying him under the table. That got him a 10-year show-cause ban, and the program got a couple years of reduced scholarships, a postseason ban and a non-conference ban, iirc. This is way worse. Penn State football should be thankful if it avoids the death penalty here.

Not that there was anything wrong with your post, but let's be clear about what this was. There are already some apologists out there trying to obfuscate the issue by calling it "abuse" or "fondling" or "inappropriate behavior."

If you gave the Pirates another 20 million to spend after adding one of those guys, then I'd say they had a decent shot at it.

Good luck finding someone to willingly rape an 85 year old man. But if you need someone to do his best to ignore it and sweep it under the rug, there's a soon-to-be-unemployed elderly gentleman in Pennsylvania with excellent experience in the field.

If Vitters puts up an .869 OPS next season across AA and AAA, that would be 99 points of OPS higher than he's ever managed beyond low-A. At that point, he'd have taken a humongous leap forward offensively and he'd still just have matched what Brett Jackson just did at almost exactly the same age as Vitters would be. And he's still a significantly worse defender who is further down the defensive spectrum than Jackson.

Apparently, you missed that he played at age 21 this year. This is an example of how prospects who are drafted out of high school (and at only 17, in Vitters' case) tend to be underrated after awhile because people just don't get how long it takes.

Ooh, I'd forgotten about the limit on Type As. I wonder if that will impact the Cubs' decisions or some of the fantasy offseasons we've been talking about.

I think that's underselling him a bit. I think he's a legitimate MLB starter at 2b, albeit not a great one. Barney to Jackson is a smaller gap than Jackson to Castro, imo.

How do you necessarily link that with the AL has superior pitching so that a move to the NL makes it easier for hitters? Couldn't it be that the AL simply has better hitters to explain the difference? Couldn't it be that the NL doesn't have teams structured for a DH and therefore is at a disadvantage when playing interleague? Also, I haven't done the math, but even if things were 50/50 and you plotted the curve of expected outcomes after 2000 games, I'm pretty sure 55% would be within two standard deviations. Which means it wouldn't be especially compelling evidence. It's been a loooong time since I had to plot a binomial distribution. I'll have to take your word for it.

A nearly 2000-game sample in which one league wins 55% of the games doesn't sway you?

I just don't see the Cubs(under Theo) putting that much into one player. $4M gets you a middle inning reliever or a good bench player. And with the current roster, we could use both. It's Pujols at 31(not 27) and according to Theo's philosophy, at the back end of his peak production. And there have been FA that put up their best numbers after they signed with another team. The Cardinals won't pay him $30M for 8 years. As the other poster put it, the Cubs don't need to pay for bench players and relievers. That's the one thing their system is set up to produce in abundance, cheaply.

I was thinking about who might be "cut" in 2012. I'm talking about players who are under team control, would normally be major leaguers, and we just decide they don't have a spot for them on the team. Whether it be sent to the minors, dumped in a worthless trade, waivers, non-tender, whatever. Koyie Hill non-tender is an obvious one Does Tyler Colvin have a place on an Hoystein-produced ball club? Blake DeWitt seems kinda superfluous, but he might have enough trade value to not really be a straight "cut." Anyone else on the chopping block?

Why do people think the NL is weaker? I understand projecting pitchers to get better because they don't have to face a DH. But why project a hitter to get better by moving to the NL? I haven't checked lately, but for a few years there virtually every move involving a significant player switching leagues was NL>AL. From 2005-11, the AL is 979-785 in interleague play for a .554 winning percentage. Definitely a tougher league.