Comments on: Kevin Towers used to mess with Brad Penny by altering the radar gun readings in San Diego

By: nyyankeefanforever

nyyankeefanforever — Tue, 03 May 2011 07:14:01 +0000

This is really old news common knowledge type stuff — anybody who ever sat behind the backstop has seen the guns and the lack of correlation with with what flashes on the scoreboard. It’s no different than how all stadiums doctor the opposing teams’ bullpen mounds so they’re too high, low or steep and install rubbers that are narrow, crooked, protrude or are buried. Or how teams will replay errors by the opposing team over and over on their scoreboard but never those of their their own; or the way the home public address system suddenly plays a funny song much louder than normal levels when the opposing team has a conference on the mound. That’s just baseball, the only sport with no clock and different ground rules for virtually every stadium.

By: nyyankeefanforever

nyyankeefanforever — Tue, 03 May 2011 07:02:03 +0000

He said raising the gun readings for his own pitchers gave them an “edge” — meaning it screwed with the heads of opposing batters, not by fooling his own pitchers.

By: notdumb

notdumb — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:21:02 +0000

im surprised hes not being punished for this , it increases injury risk the guy sees the low number starts throwing harder and maybe tears something. its also just a cheesy lowlife way of gaining an advantage but steroids are wrong right

By: paperlions

paperlions — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:45:32 +0000

Towers wasn’t the only GM that suspected his players of using steroids, every single one did (or knew for a fact they were)…he was just the most honest about what he knew or suspected and when he knew/suspected it.

By: mofoe56

mofoe56 — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:27:49 +0000

lighten up chrissy….if they’re all stupid enough to gage his performance on a speed gun, they get what they deserve….actually it’s pretty clever….”if you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’…..

By: Chris Fiorentino

Chris Fiorentino — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:25:49 +0000

Yeah, I think bush league is definitely the right word to describe it. Makes me kinda glad that the Padres choked the way they did last year…Karma is a bitch.

By: professor59

professor59 — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:24:40 +0000

Or Florida’s, or Ohio’s, or Chicago’s, etc…

By: spindervish

spindervish — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:24:04 +0000

I’m kind of with you on this. I don’t see how it’s quite cheating, exactly, but it definitely seems wrong. I would like it if there were some way MLB could tell teams to cut this kind of shit out and actually enforce it, though I don’t know that the offense really even rises to the level of warranting a fine. Basically it just seems like some bush league BS.

By: clydeserra

clydeserra — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:09:43 +0000

Bob Gibson never looked as the scoreboard radar reading.

By: Chris Fiorentino

Chris Fiorentino — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:59:49 +0000

Maybe I am overreacting a little bit, but I think this is pretty reprehensible behavior by the Padres GM. It’s one thing to not show close replays that went your team’s way at games. Or it would be one thing to just say the gun is broken whenever Penny pitched, so he wouldn’t know how fast he was throwing. It’s a whole different thing to actually put wrong information on the scoreboard. I mean, doesn’t that open up a can of worms, where the pitching coach of the Dodgers could be like “Wow, Penny’s throwing slow tonight. Wonder if he has a dead arm”. Or maybe Penny throws more breaking balls because he sees the speed and thinks his fastball is off. I understand that it’s all gamesmanship, but to out-and-out lie is just wrong in my opinion, and I would think that is something that MLB should punish very harshly or at the very least, make sure doesn’t happen again.

Or maybe I am just overreacting here.

By: oikosjeremy

oikosjeremy — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:49:59 +0000

This is funny. But I’m a little surprised a major league pitcher could be manipulated like this. I’d have thought these guys are pretty tuned in to how good their stuff is on a given day. I mean, why wouldn’t Penny just think “Man, the gun in San Diego is always slow”?

And as for bumping up the readings on your own pitchers, do you really want to be fooling your own guys into thinking they throw harder than they actually do? Do you really want one of your pitchers thinking, “Boy, my heater’s really hopping today! To hell with my breaking ball, I’m just going to give Pujols the gas and make him prove he can hit it!”

By: heyblueyoustink

heyblueyoustink — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:28:49 +0000

Towers manipulating the numbers? Maybe he should be working for the Venezuelan government’s elections bureau?

By: WhenMattStairsIsKing

WhenMattStairsIsKing — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:24:21 +0000

“Hey, how fast was that last fastball?”

“Uh…82. Hehe!”

“DAMMIT!!! Why are my pitches so much slower in San Diego? Stupid sea level.”

By: kcroyal

kcroyal — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:20:34 +0000

I’m not sure about this season, but the last couple the gun at the “K” was a couple MPH faster.

By: Jonny 5

Jonny 5 — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:09:29 +0000

That’s pretty effed up. And it’s kind of funny how easy Penny was to control that way. Wow.

By: shaunri

shaunri — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:07:57 +0000

From the NBC Sports Archives on Kevin Towers:

NBCSports.com news services
updated 12:52 p.m. ET March 1, 2005

San Diego Padres general manager Kevin Towers said he strongly suspected late star Ken Caminiti was using steroids but kept quiet about it because the team was doing well at the box office partly because of Caminiti’s hitting, ESPN reported.

I feel somewhat guilty, because I felt like I knew,” Towers told ESPN. “I still don’t know for sure, but Cammy came out and said that he used steroids, and I suspected. Selfishly, the guy was putting up numbers, and I didn’t do anything about it. That’s just the truth.”

Kevin seems to have a problem with cheating. Good thing he’s not at BYU.