Newark, N.J., Feb 11, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- A majority of Americans want Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros to be stripped of their 2017 World Series title, according to a new poll by a Catholic university.
The survey, conducted by Seton Hall University and published on Feb. 10, found that 52% of respondents want the Houston team’s championship revoked.
“The sentiment to strip the Astros of their trophy is well reflected in the seriousness by which people view rule breaking,” said Rick Gentile, director of the Seton Hall Sports Poll, which is sponsored by the school’s Sharkey Institute within the Stillman School of Business.
Seton Hall University in Orange, New Jersey, is a Catholic university founded in 1856 by Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley of Newark, nephew of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. It is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Newark, with Cardinal Joseph Tobin serving as president of the university’s board of trustees.
It is one of the oldest diocesan-run Catholic universities in the country and has about 10,000 students, including 6,000 undergraduates.
The Seton Hall Sports Poll surveyed 662 adults around the U.S., and was conducted in the wake of revelations that players and coaches from Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Houston Astros in 2017 employed a sophisticated method of stealing the pitching signals of opposing teams by using an illegal video feed.
While just over half of respondents (52%) wanted the Astros stripped of their title, only 35% said that the World Series result should be allowed to stand, and 13% responded “Don’t know/No opinion.”
Reports first surfaced in November last year that the Astros, during their 2017 championship season, employed an electronic system of stealing opponents’ signs to notify hitters in real time what pitch to expect.
Although players stealing opponents’ signs on the field—such as a runner at second base looking at the catcher’s signs to the pitcher—has long been regarded by players and fans as a natural part of baseball, to do so using artificial means such as video feeds is widely considered to be unethical and a violation of the “unwritten rules” of the game.
An investigation by Major League Baseball, which led to a report published in a January, concluded that the Astros used technology to steal signs and that the Astros’ manager A.J. Hinch knew of the procedure but did not act to stop it. The report also said that general manager Jeff Luhnow was culpable, whether through gross ignorance or knowing of the system and not stopping it.
MLB suspended Luhnow for one year; Hinch was suspended as well for knowing the system was being utilized but not putting a stop to it. The Astros organization promptly fired both of them after MLB announced its suspensions. The organization was also fined and lost draft choices.
Despite the MLB finding that the sign-stealing scheme was “player-driven and player-executed” except for bench coach Alex Cora who also participated, no players were disciplined by the Astros or MLB.
Cora, who went on to become the manager of the Boston Red Sox in 2018, was let go by the Red Sox after the investigation. Carlos Beltran, who was a member of the 2017 championship team, was reportedly a part of the player-run scheme and was hired as manager of the New York Mets after the 2019 season. He was also fired after the MLB investigation.
According to the Seton Hall poll, 84% of respondents said a sports team breaking the rules for an advantage “really hurts the game.”
A marginally smaller number (83%) said that a politician doing so “really hurts the country,” but respondents were sharply divided along party lines: While 94% of Democrats said a politician cheating “really hurts the country,” but only 68% of Republicans agreed.
A majority of all respondents still said that a “winning at all costs” mentality is strongest in politics, with only 20% saying it is strongest in professional sports.
Thirty-eight percent of respondents said that athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs is “more detrimental to the game of baseball” than illegally stealing signs; 31% said that both are detrimental.
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Pope Francis welcomes members of the Italian Association of Leather Chemists during an audience in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican Apostolic Palace on January 29, 2022. / Vatican Media
Portland, Maine, Sep 25, 2017 / 10:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A lawsuit seeking to challenge a Maine law allowing only doctors to perform abortions has drawn criticism from pro-life advocates who warned it could endanger women’s health and safety.
Anna Lulis from Moneta, Virginia, (left) who works for the pro-life group Students for Life of America, stands beside an abortion rights demonstrator outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2022, after the court’s decision in the Dobbs abortion case was announced. / Katie Yoder/CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 5, 2022 / 13:31 pm (CNA).
U.S. Catholic voters are split on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, but a majority agrees that abortion should be restricted and that there should be at least some protections for the unborn child in the womb, according to a new EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll.
The court’s June 24 ruling in the Mississippi abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization upended 49 years of nationwide legalized abortion and freed states to regulate abortion as they see fit.
When asked whether they agreed or disagreed with Roe being overturned, 46.2% agreed, 47.8% disagreed, and 6% said they weren’t sure.
Catholic voters were similarly split on whether they are more or less likely to support a candidate who agrees with Roe’s dismantling: 42% said they were more likely, 41.9% said they were less likely, and 16.1% were unsure.
At the same time, the poll results point to apparent inconsistencies in Catholic voters’ positions on abortion.
While nearly half of Catholic voters in the poll said they disagreed with Roe being overturned, a large majority (86.5%) said they support some kind of limit on abortion, even though Roe and related abortion cases allowed only narrow regulation at the state level. The breakdown is as follows:
26.8% said abortion should be allowed only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother;
19.8% said abortion should be allowed until 15 weeks when the baby can feel pain;
13.1% said that abortion should be allowed only during the first six months of pregnancy;
9.9% said that abortion should be allowed only until a heartbeat can be detected, and
9.1% said that abortion should be allowed only to save the life of the mother.
Of special note for Catholic pro-life leaders, only a small minority of Catholic voters — 7.8% — were aligned with the clear and consistent teaching of the Catholic Church that abortion should never be allowed.
On the other end of the spectrum of abortion views, 13.4% of Catholic voters said that abortion should be available to a woman at any time during her pregnancy.
The poll, conducted by the Trafalgar Group from Sept. 12–19, surveyed 1,581 Catholic voters and has a margin of error of 2.5%. The questionnaire was administered using a mix of six different methods, including phone calls, text messages, and email.
The poll’s results echo surveys of the general U.S. population on abortion. A Pew Research Center survey from March found that 19% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all cases, while 8% said it should be illegal in all cases. More recent Gallup data from May found that 35% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal under any circumstances while 13% said it should be illegal in all circumstances.
The Pew Research Center data also looked at Catholic adults. Thirteen percent said abortion should be legal in all cases, while 10% said it should be illegal in all cases.
A previous EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll released in July found that 9% of Catholic likely voters said abortion should never be permitted and 18% said that abortion should be available at any time. The poll similarly showed that a majority of Catholic voters (82%) support some kind of restriction on abortion.
Confused about what Roe said?
The poll’s results came as little surprise to Catholic pro-life public policy experts such as Elizabeth R. Kirk.
“This study confirms a phenomenon we have known for some time, i.e., that there is an enormous disconnect between the scope of abortion practices permitted by the Roe regime and what abortion practices Americans actually support,” Kirk, director of the Center for Law and the Human Person at The Catholic University of America, told CNA.
Kirk, who also serves as a faculty fellow for the Institute for Human Ecology and research associate and lecturer at the Columbus School of Law, noted the finding that nearly 42% of Catholic voters said they are less likely to support a candidate who agrees with Roe being overturned.
“At first glance that suggests that many Catholic voters wanted to keep Roe in place,” she said. “Yet, the study also reveals that 86.5% of Catholic voters want some type of restriction on abortion access.”
Why the inconsistency? “Most people do not realize that Roe allowed states to permit unlimited abortion access throughout the entire pregnancy and made it difficult, or even impossible, to enact commonsense restrictions supported by the majority of Americans,” Kirk observed.
“Many people who ‘support Roe’ actually disagree, unknowingly, with what it permitted,” she added. “All Dobbs has done is return abortion policy to the legislative process so that the people may enact laws which reflect the public consensus.”
Mass-goers more strongly pro-life
The new poll, the second of three surveys of Catholic voters tied to the midterm elections on Nov. 8, shows that the opinions of Catholic voters on abortion and other issues vary depending on how often respondents attend Mass.
Only a small portion of those who attend Mass at least once a week said that abortion should be allowed at any time: 0% of those who attend Mass daily, 1% who attend more than once a week, and 8% of those who attend weekly support abortion without restrictions. In contrast, 57.5% of Catholic voters who attend Mass daily, 21.5% of those who attend more than once a week, and 15.6% of those who attend weekly say abortion should never be permitted.
In addition to respondents’ apparent confusion about what Roe stipulated, the poll suggests that many Catholic voters don’t fully understand what their Church teaches about abortion.
Less than one-third of Catholic voters who said they accept all Church teachings (31.1%) said that abortion should never be permitted, and 5% who profess to fully accept the Church’s teachings said abortion should be permitted at any time.
Overall, 32.8% of respondents reported attending Mass at least once a week, with another 30.7% attending once a year or less. Only 15% agreed that they accept all of the Church’s teachings and live their lives accordingly, with another 34.5% saying they generally accept most of the Church’s teachings and try to live accordingly.
Pew Research Center also looked at how Mass attendance factors into Catholics’ views on abortion. Among those who attend Mass at least once a week: 4% said abortion should be legal in all cases, and 24% said it should be illegal in all cases, Pew found.
Strong support for pregnancy centers
The poll asked Catholic voters about a variety of other topics including abortion limits, Holy Communion for pro-abortion politicians, conscience protections for health care workers, and pro-life pregnancy centers.
EWTN
Among the findings:
Catholic voters are prioritizing other issues above abortion. Only 10.1% of Catholic voters identified abortion as the most important issue facing the nation, falling behind inflation (34.2%) and the economy/jobs (19.7%) and tying with immigration. At the same time, a higher percentage of Catholic voters chose abortion than crime (8.7%), climate change (8.1% ), health care (6.8%), K–12 education (1.7%), or religious freedom (0.8%).
About half of Catholic voters (49.3%) disagreed that Catholic political leaders who support abortion publicly and promote policies that increase abortion access should refrain from taking Communion, while 36.7% said they should refrain.
A majority (67.4%) of Catholic voters said they support public funding for pro-life pregnancy centers that offer pregnant women life-affirming alternatives to abortion, while 18.3% said they did not favor using tax dollars for this purpose.
A comparable majority (61.8%) said that political and church leaders should be speaking out against the recent attacks and acts of vandalism on pregnancy resource centers.
When asked about conscience protections for health care workers that would allow them to opt out of providing “services” such as abortion, a majority of Catholic voters (60.7%) said that health care workers should not be obligated to engage in procedures that they object to based on moral or religious grounds. Conversely, 25.3% said that health care workers should be obligated to engage in procedures that they object to based on moral or religious grounds.
Work to be done
What is the takeaway from the latest poll, where abortion is concerned?
“This polling shows that Catholics, like the overwhelming majority of Americans, support commonsense protections for women and the unborn,” Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow with The Catholic Association, told CNA.
“It also affirms other recent polling that found Americans by strong numbers support the work of pregnancy resource centers in providing women facing crisis pregnancies with a real choice and the chance to thrive as mothers despite difficult circumstances,” she noted.
EWTN
At the same time, McGuire added, “This new polling is also a reminder that more work needs to be done in catechizing Catholics on foundational Church teaching in support of vulnerable life in all stages — an effort that is continually undermined by Catholic politicians in the highest echelons of power who use their platforms to advocate for extreme abortion policies in direct violation of Church teaching.”
Nearly all of those surveyed (99.2%) said they plan to vote in the midterm elections on Nov. 8.
This whole matter sets a new standard for the word ‘silly’, which, unfortunately, is not a new development – new advances in ‘silly’ these days are coming along with increasing frequency. The fact that this poll was taken by a so-called ‘catholic’ (small c) university, which seems to be emphasized to lend it some much-needed ‘gravitas’, just makes it that much sillier.
Stealing signs in baseball began – the day after the invention of the game. The fact that it has now evolved into electronics just makes the whole thing that much more absurd. Stealing signs exists in all sports, and it is a part of the games – baseball, football, basketball, etc.
What to do about it? Change the signs. If you know what the bad guys (aka the other team) are doing – do something to mess them up. If you know what they’re doing and you can’t stop them – you shouldn’t be there.
Sign stealing is not un-American, it is not unethical, it is not wrong. At this point it does seem to be politically incorrect, which to me makes it a plus.
“Reports first surfaced in November last year that the Astros, during their 2017 championship season, employed an electronic system of stealing opponents’ signs to notify hitters in real time of what pitch to expect.”
I don’t get it:
1) A camera focuses on the catcher’s crotch in order to discern what signals he is giving to the pitcher.
2) The pitcher sees the signal he likes and nods.
3) He goes into his windup and throws the pitch agreed on
but
4) The batter knows what is coming because
5) The camera operator already knows what the catcher’s signals mean and has transmitted that information to the batter.
leading to
6) HOW DID HE DO THAT?
This makes absolutely NO sense, and it has in fact moved from silly to absurd. The word ‘silly’ is hereby restored to its former place of honor, referring to dogs (my lab Rachel), good people, and other honorable things.
Shirley – Seton Hall has more important things to take a poll about, but perhaps that is hoping for too much.
New Poll Says Toss Seton Hall’s Catholic Title.
Are we not rewarding cheating to let them keep that title?
Though we must admit that most Americans care more about sports. Look at what we pay, often in taxes, to gather at our stadiums.
I watched Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs in the 2016 series and it wasn’t played right. That’s how it came off through TV, from my perspective. If this view reflects a reality it doesn’t speak well for a section in baseball and it wouldn’t be hard to delineate who is involved.
This whole matter sets a new standard for the word ‘silly’, which, unfortunately, is not a new development – new advances in ‘silly’ these days are coming along with increasing frequency. The fact that this poll was taken by a so-called ‘catholic’ (small c) university, which seems to be emphasized to lend it some much-needed ‘gravitas’, just makes it that much sillier.
Stealing signs in baseball began – the day after the invention of the game. The fact that it has now evolved into electronics just makes the whole thing that much more absurd. Stealing signs exists in all sports, and it is a part of the games – baseball, football, basketball, etc.
What to do about it? Change the signs. If you know what the bad guys (aka the other team) are doing – do something to mess them up. If you know what they’re doing and you can’t stop them – you shouldn’t be there.
Sign stealing is not un-American, it is not unethical, it is not wrong. At this point it does seem to be politically incorrect, which to me makes it a plus.
But that’s just me.
You are not alone.
“Reports first surfaced in November last year that the Astros, during their 2017 championship season, employed an electronic system of stealing opponents’ signs to notify hitters in real time of what pitch to expect.”
I don’t get it:
1) A camera focuses on the catcher’s crotch in order to discern what signals he is giving to the pitcher.
2) The pitcher sees the signal he likes and nods.
3) He goes into his windup and throws the pitch agreed on
but
4) The batter knows what is coming because
5) The camera operator already knows what the catcher’s signals mean and has transmitted that information to the batter.
leading to
6) HOW DID HE DO THAT?
This makes absolutely NO sense, and it has in fact moved from silly to absurd. The word ‘silly’ is hereby restored to its former place of honor, referring to dogs (my lab Rachel), good people, and other honorable things.
Shirley – Seton Hall has more important things to take a poll about, but perhaps that is hoping for too much.
Sigh
New Poll Says Toss Seton Hall’s Catholic Title.
Are we not rewarding cheating to let them keep that title?
Though we must admit that most Americans care more about sports. Look at what we pay, often in taxes, to gather at our stadiums.
I watched Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs in the 2016 series and it wasn’t played right. That’s how it came off through TV, from my perspective. If this view reflects a reality it doesn’t speak well for a section in baseball and it wouldn’t be hard to delineate who is involved.
Joe “The Hoodie” Maddon has been fighting over his hoodie for decades.
MLB drops the hammer on Maddon’s hoodie
http://www.espn.com/espn/page2/index/_/id/5114247
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Maddon