Red Sox linked to using video replay room illegally

I'll stay out of the potential political stuff that your question could be construed to raise despite my strong opinions on that and just say that I was a big UCONN Huskies fan - in Connecticut there was the Whalers and nothing else to call your own and then when the Whalers faded out and soon moved the only real Connecticut team of significance were the UCONN Huskies college basketball team (for the sake of this question I'll exclude the UCONN Ladies who have done just about everything you could ask for in their excellence and their ability to stay virtually controversy free - Geno Auriemma has been wonderful), but the UCONN men's team - they reminded me a bit of the Sox - never a winner, had their share of heartbreaks, and then one day they finally slayed their dragon (Duke) in the 1999 NCAA finals after finally breaking through to finally make the Final 4.

Eventually they sustained success but around the time Jim Calhoun was leaving there started to be the stench of recruiting violations and things that were being done that were not above board and it continued into the Kevin Ollie era. So there were suddenly 4 championships (just like the Sox), but it didn't feel so kosher anymore.

Then I root for the Patriots who were the league joke for many years. Then suddenly the Patriots are the greatest dynasty in football history, but every five minutes there are controversies with that team, although I do think Deflategate was the stupidest thing I've ever heard of - that should never have been a thing.

Now between Manny and Ortiz accused of PEDs (in Manny's case it's nore than an accusation - the question is WHEN was he doing it?) and now the controversy with 2018, which should be a sacred year in Red Sox history, only behind 2004 and perhaps even with 2013 and 1967 and 1912), and that now has a stain on it, even if the Sox were doing what pretty much everybody else was doing.

All those championships have some scent of stain on them which is a shame because it is about winning it all. I mean I don't remember hearing controversies about how my teams won - when they weren't winning, and I certainly have enjoyed the past two decades of the golden era than the previous two decades than my fandom stretches back to, but yeah, in the end it's all about the winning and virtually everybody is cheating in some form to get that edge to win.

So it has become acceptable I suppose even if some of that detracts a little bit afterwards because it's not like you know it's actually happening when it's happening. You always find out afterwards at some point and then groan to yourself and shake your head, but hey, it's not like I'm going to tear down my shrine room of Championships, so what does that say about me and my morals (and before Yankee fans act superior how do they win Game 7 without Juicin' Giambi's 2 homers off Pedro)?

That's up there with your umpires conspiracy. Their calls are anti-Red Sox, and pro-Yankees.

The Red Sox were caught with that apple watch thing and then warned not to screw up again. They did so now they're facing penalties for ignoring Manfred. Houston is getting punished too, so it's not just the Red Sox. Sooner or later it will extend to the Yankees. I'm willing to guess they're not 100% above board either.

Let's keep the paranoid conspiracy theories out of here. This has nothing to do with the Yankees, and your insistence on always bringing them up when mentioning Red Sox getting disciplined says nothing about Manfred and everything about you. Domingo German just got the harshest penalty yet under the domestic violence policy. There is not some Manfred-led conspiracy to help the Yankees and screw the Red Sox.

Let's keep the paranoid conspiracy theories out of here. This has nothing to do with the Yankees, and your insistence on always bringing them up when mentioning Red Sox getting disciplined says nothing about Manfred and everything about you. Domingo German just got the harshest penalty yet under the domestic violence policy. There is not some Manfred-led conspiracy to help the Yankees and screw the Red Sox.

They're clearly going after the Houston team the hardest, so stop the "everyone is out to get Boston" persecution complex. Also the Patriots get punished a lot because they get caught doing little cheaty things a lot. You can't complain that they "haven't fixed it" when they're trying to fix it.

To be fair, jimed has the right approach here, we should all drop the pretense and embrace the homer in us. When the other team is caught cheating, they're cheaters and should be disbanded. When our team is caught cheating, we were set up and there are a lot of attenuating circumstances. There should be no conflicting feelings when it comes to sports.

And you make all Boston fans look foolish for crying about every team not going undefeated every year.  If you don't want to interact with me, then stop poking.

The Red Sox pitching tanked last year. That has very little to do with cheating and probably more to do with Cora's usage of his starters out of the pen in the post-season and the lack of proper spring training. That's utilization, not cheating.

I mean, Mookie's numbers fell off to mere human high standards, but Devers blossomed, Bogaerts improved, and Vazquez was drastically better.....so did they cheat in 2019 and not cheat in 2018?

The Red Sox drop in 2019 was a lot more their pitching and lack of depth of pitching than it was their offense although their offense had an annoying knack for failing in clutch situations of close games, but to chalk that up to no longer cheating - that doesn't make sense either.

Honestly, the cheating helps obviously, but I think the impact can be a bit overblown. I mean, if you have Sale dropping off - I know maybe the rest of the league was doing a better job of cheating in 2019 - and you have injuries to Sale, Price had injuries, Porcello having a terrible year, Eovaldi's year being a washout and a mediocre bullpen, why wouldn't you expect the Sox to do a lot worse than a team that actually exceeded it's pythag record in 2018 by five games as well?

I think Cora's (the manager's) impact is overstated.

The Cardinals were fined 2 million and lost their first 2 picks in the 2017 draft for hacking the Astros computers mining for information.

Will it be this bad? Like I said before, if they know everyone is trying to do it does it make the punishment more or less. It is a quandary for MLB but I think the Sox are going to get smacked around pretty good for this.