Quote:
Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear
Can someone please tell me why the teams have control over the balls on the first place? Does any other sport let the teams do this?
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Soccer/Football
The ball boys who retrieve balls that go off the pitch and are supposed to get them to the players for a throw in. Those ball boys are usually fans of the home team and have been known to slow down getting the ball to opposition players when that is beneficial to the home team.
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Baseball, there are times where teams were accused of doctoring the game baseballs to minimize home runs when power teams were coming to town (the Rockies were, I think, the first to do this with league approval, but this was for all games (not just against certain teams) and it was to reduce the crazy number of home runs in the dry thin air in Colorado).
There have been rumours in basketball about it.
I hate the saying "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't trying" - I think that is a horrible ethic - but it seems in pro sports that is the way things are.