I know I'm super, super late, but how is collecting data cheating? ("cheat sheet")

Perhaps I'm being more literal than intended, but with all the cheating talk flying around lately, that how I'm reading it.

As far as "y'all never played sports" if you think it should be returned, my dad coached HS sports from when I was born until I was out of college, and I played everything, including baseball. I'll settle for "y'all weren't big enough assholes while playing sports". I mean, do what though wilt, but this is simply shitty behavior, and teaching people to be jerks.

Perhaps I'm being more literal than intended, but with all the cheating talk flying around lately, that how I'm reading it.

And to add to this, that it DESERVED to be stolen, as a result.

Too many people here are trying to create custom definitions of "equipment" in order to exclude these cards, and every attempt has been dumb and transparently so. For a MLB game equipment is, plainly, stuff people are equipped with to aid in their participation in the game.

There are many ways in which it isn't equipment. First, it's just not the sort of object for which that word would ordinarily be used. If one goes to a factory or construction site or whatever, the tools and machinery would be called equipment. The safety gear the workers would use would be called equipment. But the safety manuals? Who would use the term "equipment" for those? In an office setting, one might describe the laptops and the big screen and the white boards as "equipment" that needs to be cleaned up from the meeting room after the meeting — but nobody would describe the memos and the client files and such as "equipment." Pieces of paper with information on them are not called "equipment."

Second, as a functional matter it isn't equipment; it's not used for actual game play, the way bats and gloves and balls are.

But that having been said, I fail to see why the "equipment" label vel non has any significance as to the Rays' ethical obligations. As long as there's nothing unethical about using one of these cards (and I don't think they belong on the field, but my personal view has nothing to do with whether it's an accepted part of the game), then of course the Rays can't keep it. But they can look at it, unless it's understood among everyone that they can't.

It doesn't matter if it's game equipment or not. Non-equipment items found on a playing field would be returned too by anyone decent. Like a necklace or charm or something. You wouldn't just declare "finders keepers".