Lies and Damned Lies
Posted: May 4th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball, Other Sports | 42 Comments »
Kansas City Royals manager Trey Hillman lied recently. Right up front, I have to tell that his lying is not the point of this. I don’t blame Trey for lying. I just use Trey as the example for this only because it is convenient … I feel certain that without much effort I could use the lies of 20 or 25 or perhaps even all 29 of the other managers in Major League Baseball to make the same point. I could use the lies of dozens of football coaches, maybe hundreds. Same with basketball. Same with hockey. But I have a first hand account of Trey’s lie so, for time’s sake, I’ll use that.
First the lie: You might recall that the Royals did not use star closer Joakim Soria for nine consecutive days, which seemed just plain odd. Each day, Hillman would explain his reason why he did not use Soria, and each day those reasons seemed more and more curious. After one game, he launched into some sort of bizarre monologue about the dangers of bringing in closers into tie games on the road … it wasn’t easy to follow.
Well, it all turned out to be a lie. Soria was hurt. Or, anyway, that’s the current version of the truth. Trey did not just sort of talk around it — no, he lied directly. He was asked if Soria was hurt. He said no, the guy was 100 percent healthy. Those were his words. That might be a lie any time — are any of us REALLY 100 percent healthy? — but it was directly a lie when you considered that Soria was, you know, injured. A couple of days later. Hillman announced that, yes, Soria was hurt and would need a few days off. Trey admitted that, yes, he was lying, but for competitive reasons. It is the way he is wired, he said. He will lie to help the ballclub.
I mention this not to jab Trey — quite the opposite, in fact. I don’t think many of us blame him for lying there. I don’t. We live in a time and place where more or less everyone will lie to help the ballclub. Lying is expected and often celebrated. Think about how many lies you see when watching sports.
– A punter falls down when nobody touched him. What is this but a child screaming, “He hit me,” when he didn’t?
– A soccer player takes a dive in the penalty box, hoping he can coax the referee to give him a penalty kick. Another version of the “He hit me,” lie.
– A basketball player falls to the court when someone is driving toward the basket. “He ran into me!”
– A pitch in baseball rushes inside and no one cal tell if it hit the hitter’s bat or his hand. The batter begins walking to first base. “The ball hit me!”
– A home run ball flies over the fence but then bounces back into the field of play. The outfielder picks it up and throws it in quickly, hoping the umpire did not notice. “That’s not a home run!”
– A wide receiver is running deep for a pass, the ball is overthrow, he falls down and then points at the defender. “He interfered with me!”
– A second baseman knows he misses the tag on a stolen base. But it’s close enough that he argues with the umpire and gets the crowd all riled up. “You missed the call! You are an idiot!”
– A guy drives to the basket and gets his shot blocked cleanly. He holds his arms out and stares at the referee: “Did you not SEE him smack my hand? Are you blind?”
– A general manager knows that this player has done a few bad things off the field. Bad things. The GM comes to the television booth and announces that the player’s a great guy and a team leader and a pillar in the community and that he’s been utterly misrepresented.
On and on and on and on. We don’t just accept these sorts of lies, we demand them … if an outfielder would actually admit that a ball did leave the yard or a defensive back raised his hand as if to say, “Yeah, I interfered,” that would set off booing and a coaching lecture and hours of talk radio and Internet madness. Just the other day, Minnesota’s Denard Span may or may not have been hit by a pitch. Probably not. The umpire thought the ball hit him, and Span began walking to first base and then he started to walk back to the plate … he was stopped on the way back to the plate by manager Ron Gardenhire who was like, “Um, no, this is not Truth or Consequences pally, let’s go take our base like the nice man umpire said.”
This, of course, isn’t just on the field. Away from the field, many of us (most of us?) would expect a coach or general manager to lie rather than reveal information that might be used by the other team. I have little doubt that Trey Hillman is an honest man in his day-to-day life. He’s a spiritual guy. But he wanted other teams to think Soria was healthy enough to pitch the ninth inning … and lying in that situation was more or less mandatory.
Then, there are other times in sports when we absolutely do not accept lying. Tim Johnson lied about his time in Vietnam, and he was fired as manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. George O’Leary became a national punch line after he padded his resume in an effort to get the Notre Dame job.* When it comes to Pete Rose, to Rafael Palmeiro, to Roger Clemens and currently to Alex Rodriguez, there seems about as much anger — maybe even MORE anger — about the lying that followed the original sin as there is there is for the original sin itself.
*As a couple of brilliant readers pointed out correctly, O’Leary did not pad his resume to get the Notre Dame job. His resume had been padded earlier and then he did not remove the inaccurate information.
I’m not saying that there’s something incompatible here. We view lying differently in different situations, and we should. No, what I’m saying is that it’s harder and harder to tell in sports where the line should be drawn, where sporting lies and repugnant lies break apart.
In fact, it’s harder and harder to tell in life what are lies and what are damned lies. Give you one more example: The other day, I saw this Kia Spectra commercial … the main point of the thing seemed to be that the Spectra is better in all ways than the Toyota Corolla. It begins by showing the Kia, and pointing out that it costs $14,200.
Then it went to the same scene but without a car in the picture. This was to show there is no such thing as a $14,200 Corolla. The Corolla’s base sticker price is, according to the Kia Website, is $16,070. This is a fair point. The Kia is cheaper.
But then the commercial makes an odd claim. It says, “The $14,200 Spectra gets 30 miles to the gallon. The $14,200 Corolla does not.”
This seemed strange to me for two reasons. One, while I’m no car expert, I find it hard to believe that a Toyota Corolla does not get 30 miles to the gallon. But more to the point, the announcer very specifically says, “The $14,200 Corolla.” Why mention the price again?
So I looked it up. And the Corolla — again, this is from Kia’s own site — gets 35 mpg on the highway. And it was as I thought: The announcer never said that the Corolla doesn’t get 30 mpg. He said that the “$14,200 Corolla” doesn’t get 30 mpg. And since there’s no such thing as a $14,200 Corolla, this statement is, liberally speaking, true.
So is this clever? Or is this a lie? Seems to me that it’s hard to tell. And it’s getting harder all the time.
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Circle me Bert
“The $14,200 Corolla does not.” (because there is no such thing)
Word games. Maybe my ex-wife wrote the commercial
I just wanted to make a comment on the George O’Leary reference. I know he’s just a side note in the post, but didn’t he pad his resume to get one of his first jobs, and then that lie just followed him all the way through his career, as opposed to padding his resume to get the Notre Dame job? If I remember correctly he fibbed on a resume as a young coach, and then since his credentials were published, he couldn’t take back the lie without drawing attention to it. I always wondered why people were so infuriated.
When I was younger and switched jobs every year or so I would sometimes stretch employment periods with a couple of employers in order to completely leave off another on applications. As I see it, what I did is just as bad as what O’Leary did, and I don’t even feel a bit of guilt over it. My current employer certainly wouldn’t fire me at this point in my life if they found out.
Just one point of contention. I don’t think George O’Leary padded his resume to get the Notre Dame job. I think he padded his resume to get some job 30 years ago, then forgot to take the false info off. Not that that’s any better. I’m just saying I don’t think Notre Dame ever really considered his two semesters of grad school at UConn (or whatever the fake info was) as a serious criterion for the head coaching position at ND.
My favourite lie so far in baseball was spring training a couple years ago when JP Ricciardi said that BJ Ryan had a sore back, I think? Something innocuous, at the very least. A week later, BJ is off to Alabama for Tommy John surgery.
Big lie to keep selling tickets, if I remember correctly.
Regarding the on-field lies you referenced… I want to give another example…
In cricket, Adam Gilchrist was (mostly retired now) a GREAT wicket keeper and batsmen with an ability to smash the ball all over the ground and get quick Quick QUICK runs. He entertained the crowds immensely and people were happy to pay money to see the matches he played in. Anyway, he publicly made a decision that if he hit the ball with the bat and it was caught… he would walk off the ground… giving up his wicket… BEFORE awaiting the umpire’s decision. NOBODY else would do this as it was often very difficult to tell if the ball came off the bat or part of the body which is not out.
Gilchrist was criticized by his own teammates, other players around the world, his captain, and the media. He didn’t care. He felt it was the right thing to do. I wonder… if a baseball player turned to the umpire and said the ball didn’t hit me… or a player admitted the defensive back never touched him… what would happen in response to him? I bet he would become a natiional symbol for sportsmanship while at the same time he would be harshly critriqued by all involved!!!
Go Royals!!! C-ya, AusSteveW
The worst soccer “lie” would be the slight shove to the shoulder where the shovee then clutches his face as if someone just threw acid on it and writhes around on the ground. I don’t think anyone really roots for that, even if it’s your own player.
I thought this was a Nate Silver article, then I saw ‘and’ between Lies and Damned and thought differently.
Nice work Joe.
I might be alone here, but I’d really rather athletes/managers/GM’s not lie at all. If it’s a home run, it’s a home run, and it’s cheating to say that it’s not. I’d respect an athlete on my favorite team that much more for being honest. Sure it’d be a bummer to lose as a result of something like that, but I think of myself in that situation, I’d never be able to live with myself for cheating a win out of another team. I do however think managers/gm’s just shouldn’t answer questions about that sort of stuff.
this is also how they sell all the “male enhancment” products.
guaranteed to make a certain part of the male body larger!!!!
which part? we have no idea
The main dividing line, at least in the examples in the post, between a “lie” and a “damned lie” seems to be whether “we” (the public) are the ones being lied to.
Hillman may have told the lies to the public, but he was ultimately lying to the competition, and was doing so on the team’s behalf. It’s like when a player’s agent low-balls management in the press.
I never lied about close plays, whether the ball hit me during an at bat, missing a tag…any of that. I had one coach, once, give me grief, and I simply told the man, “I’m not gonna lie to play the game.”
It’s doable. Most people just won’t do it, for whatever reason.
The Kia commercial isn’t that tricky. The whole point of the commercial is that the $14,200 Corolla doesn’t exist, so any attribute of the Kia would not be available in the Corolla. It isn’t even subtle and is considerably more honest than most other advertising (including most infocoms).
I hate to admit this, but I voted for Marshall Faulk over Blyleven in the “Best #28″ vote mostly because the “Circle Me Bert” first posts here are so irritating. I tried to separate my feelings, but I just couldn’t click that button.
Every time I see that commercial I gloat– I bought a new Corolla a few months ago and paid less than $14,000. Boo-yeah!
Those Kia commercials bug me. There are all kinds of $14,200 Corollas out there and I’m sure most of them get 30 mpg. Of course, there may not be NEW Corollas for $14,200, but I don’t believe the commercial makes that distinction.
Joe,
Since you brought up another commercial, I haven’t had a chance to thank you for the mention of that INCREDIBLY ANNOYING Lumiere Place commercial during Royals games in your column last week.
I know that I say it every time (which in turn is annoying to my wife) but I can’t stand that commercial. “You’re never not at home” OMG
If the Royals keep winning, can’t they get some better advertisers. I hope it isn’t a year long contract.
Any way sorry if this is off topic.
Not everybody lies all the time.
I was managing a freshmen baseball game a couple years and the umpires were not geniuses. They called a double play for us on a weird play that was not a double play (I don’t remember the exact situation). The other manager came out to argue and so did I. I agreed with the other manager that the umpires were wrong. They had badly messed it up.
Of course, we were already winning by over 10 at the time, so it didn’t really matter, but I’d like to think I would have had the same reaction no matter the score since it was so blatantly wrong and not just a tough luck call.
Poor Joe, I knew that was the trick the whole time… The kicker is, the $22K VW Jetta TDI gets 42mpg… The $22K Kia does not.
A damned lie – any lie that insults my (lack of) intelligence, or maliciously concocted to manipulate me to action.
An acceptable lie – any stretch of the malleable truth done to enhance a story or make me laugh. These acceptable lies have only artistic motives.
Unfortunately, in my adult life I need to accept a wider range of lies. Like our host, I cannot rationally blame people for lying to me in a situation where many reasonable people would do the same.
No one is out to get me – everyone is simply out for themselves. I’m not going to lie to you , I read that somewhere.
I deal in brutal honesty. Or at least my honest opinion. Hows that working out? Glad you asked. Terrible. Awful.
I live in a society where lying is synonymous with manners. Continuously delivering bold truths can be considered primitive and uncouth.
Furthermore, as it pertains to most competitive endeavors – deception is more important than strength. A pitcher who is crafty will last longer than a pitcher who is all arm. Basketball players throw head fakes. Football coaches stay up nights devising ways to disguise a blitz or decoy routes.
In fact, dumb people gauge their level of intelligence by how well they lie. I am sure there are a few folks out there who believe the better they lie the further they will go. They miss the fact that when they lie , they didnt outsmart me. They betrayed my trust. There is a difference.
Finally, I dont think ones ability to lie has anything to do with people skills. I think the ability to see through a lie is far more important. Lesson number one on obtaining the truth from people: Piss them off. No one lies during a fit.
G-d, I love watching Greinke pitch.
Of the six hits, three hit off infielders’ gloves (I think Butler touched the one, and I know Callaspo and Teahen did), two were off broken bats, and I can’t remember the 6th.
Half of his starts this season include the figures…
IP: 9.0
ER: 0
K: 10.
That’ll work.
To answer AusSteveW @ #6 (and provide some background to non-cricketers)
The convention in cricket is that the umpire’s word is sacrosanct. If he says you’re out, then you are out. You tuck your bat under your arm and walk off. If he says you are not out, you stay put and play on.
At the highest level (test matches between countries), a player showing dissent – for instance, being slow to leave the field or pointing to his arm to indicate the ball hit him there (not out) rather than on his hands (out) – can be be fined and/or suspended. Fines and suspensions happen so rarely that, when they are imposed, it makes headlines.
I’ve been following cricket since 1956 and in all that time I’ve only once heard of a player getting into an argument with an umpire – England captain Mike Gatting having a shouting match with a Pakistan umpire. This happened in Pakistan, England v Pakistan, about 20 years ago, in the days before neutral umpires. The Pakistan umpires were renowned cheats who blatantly favoured their own side; something tiptoed around prior to Gatting blowing his stack.
Players tend to take a pragmatic view that most decisions are correct and the wrong ones will even out between being in your favour and agin you over the course of a season or career.
When Gilchrist made his statement that he would walk off before waiting for the umpire to give him out, it was this convention that he was flying in the face of and the reason he copped flak from fellow players. He was breaking the code that said the umpire was ALWAYS right, even when he was wrong.
And while Gilchrist went all high and mighty with his attitude to outs when batting, he wasn’t above claiming a catch, when keeping wickets, from a ball that maybe the batsman hadn’t hit – and that maybe he KNEW the batsman hadn’t hit.
Just another Aussie hypocrite in my book.
A few years ago, the much maligned (in the U.S.) soccer player Daniele De Rossi, during a league game, scored a goal with his hand. He had jumped to head the ball, but the ball went past his head and bounced of his hand into the goal. The referee assigned the goal, the opposing players protested, and De Rossi went up to the ref and told him what had happened, whereupon the goal was disallowed. At the time, Roma was winning 1-0 at home (they would end up winning 2-0). From what I remember, fan reaction was split about 50/50 between “what an idiot” and “how very sportsmanlike”.
Please come up with something more clever than “Circle Me Bert” just to prove that you were the first person to comment on a specific blog post. That’s not really a comment. That’s a Tourette-like outburst. It’s a trained monkey response. I’m certain that since you read this blog you have something more interesting to say than the same thing over and over and over. If not, please refrain from saying anything. Thanks for your consideration.
jr, if you ask a certain Argentinian I believe De Rossi’s goal would have been aided by the hand of God. Or is that only during World Cup play?
I heard Phil Jackson take this argument a step further in a radio interview a few years back, saying this type of deceit disrespects the game and the nature of competition itself. Anyone who truly loves a game should be offended by players trying to sneak around the rules – even if they play for your team.
But given our financial sector, for one example, I suppose sports is hardly the only arena where “win at all costs” is the guiding principle.
Also, in Formula 1 right now, Lewis Hamilton’s team is awaiting further sanctions from lying to race stewards in order to claim a better finishing position in the first race. What they did is not really defensible, except in the framework of “we need to say whatever we can to help the team gain points”.
On the other side, don’t forget Patrick Rafter, who was well-known for overruling linesman during matches. “Nah, Mate, that’s good,” he’d often say.
Trey’s lie is different. It’s not his duty to give inside information to his opponents. But when a player knows a ball has gone over the wall and acts like it didn’t, that’s dishonorable. The ‘winning is the only thing’ attitude has done a great disservice to sports, which offer many great opportunities to demonstrate the concept of honor. These are often lost nowadays by people who win but disrespect the game, as Phil Jackson suggests.
It’s a sign of the culture we live in, and the pressure ofo high-level competition. That’s why ethicists have not made great strides in professional sports, nor should they.
I remember, painfully, watching as my son (then age 14) was batting in the last inning of a game in which his team was getting blown out. He was not a star, just an average player, and the umpire said he was hit by a pitch. My son said no, I wasn’t, and I want to hit. Parents actually booed and started hooting at the kid. Two pitches later he grounded out, and a couple of idiot parents actually kept making overly loud comments.
After the game, I asked my son if he learned anything, and he said “yeah, I learned that if I have kids and they’re playing in a ball game someday, I ought to keep my mouth shut and let them and the other kids play.” So, we went for ice cream.
Trey Hillman and Ron Gardenhire play at a higher level. They’re not teaching life lessons. I’d buy them an ice cream too (though I’d also ask Trey why he keeps giving the ball to Kyle Farnsworth).
“Nothing is better than…”
My favorite soccer lie is Ronaldo clutching his face after failing to catch a ball lifted to his midriff. It was in the ‘02 World Cup and resulted in an opposing player being sent off (I think), or at least being shown yellow.
Since soccer has been mentioned in a number of comments, here is footage of the Italian team practicing their dives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ4vJ0BDhZU
Yes, it’s a commercial, but painfully close to the real thing on the pitch.
As the British announcers would say, “This is cynical play.”
Once upon a time, the rules of baseball mandated sportsmanlike play and umpires were supposed to poll players and fans if they were uncertain of a call. But those rules seem to have been removed.
Not removed is: Players in uniform shall not address or mingle with spectators, nor sit in the stands before, during, or after a game. No manager, coach or player shall address any spectator before or during a game. Players of opposing teams shall not fraternize at any time while in uniform. So it seems that Manny Ramirez’s hand slap of the fan when he caught that long fly in left a year ago or so would violate the “address or mingle spectators” rule, even though it was one of the coolest plays I’ve ever seen. But I digress.
What I’d like to see is a return to those halcyon days of yesteryear, and force players to be honest and sportsmanlike with a one week suspension for violation of those rules. Trap a fly ball and act like you caught it? Get a week off. Play a fair ball like it was foul? Week off. Play the homer like it was a double? Week off. Fake getting hit by a pitch? Pretend that the ball hit the dirt before the catcher caught it? A. J. Pierzynski, the biggest cheater of modern times, deserves at least a week off. Deliberately get in the way of an infielder trying to complete a double play? Get to watch the rest of the World Series from the stands.
You just see downsides? Well, here are the upsides. First of all, it would make the game more honest. Secondly, if a player tries to fake a play, the ump would be able to hit him with a suspension based on video analysis afterwards. Finally, when a player legitimately fakes a play, an ump *might* be able to use video, knowing the player cares enough to risk suspension. Since baseball already has certain types of plays where upon the appeal of a manager the ump is encouraged to check with the other umps to get the play right (the most important thing *is* to get the play right, according to the rule book) then this would seem a logical extension. And the case in point from the game last week when a ball eight inches foul was called fair leading to three eighth inning runs. When the left fielder objects, the ump has reason to double check, because the risk of one play does not justify a week long suspension.
Does it make for a better game? I *think* so. So much of baseball’s history is about cheating, or the catching of cheaters. Turn it around, glorify the folks who are honest and sportsmanlike, and I think you’ll have more fans of the game. Maybe not more fans of a specific team, but for every cheater who gets away with something pleasing his team’s fans, there are at least as many opposing fans who are unhappy. I’d say that while there are thousands of Patriots fans who love the illegal taping, but more than that who hate it. The same goes for corked bats, doctored pitches, and steroids, and phantom pushes, hidden crackback blocking, and using stickum. Put baseball on the same honesty standards as golf (and bridge, and even that lone cricket player; remember, the phrase “it isn’t cricket” goes back to the times when cricketeers were self-policing) and I bet baseball would gain more fans overall.
I agree with Steve. We need to look at both sides of the equation here. On the one side, you have a manager being badgered with a lot of questions, some of which, if answered truthfully, would probably put his team at a competitive disadvantage. On the other hand, you have a pack of badgers asking questions on things that may or may not be matters of legitimate public concern. If I’m Joakim, I don’t want my manager telling the badgers I’m hurt and there may well be federal laws preventing the manager from doing so. But if Trey says “no comment” or “I’m not allowed to talk about that” when he’s asked if Joakim is hurt, then the natural conclusion will be that he is hurt but the manager just doesn’t want to admit it. And the White Sox, Indians, et al. will also jump to the same conclusion. So what should Trey do in that situation? With some questions it’s easy to get indignant and simply say: “I’m not answering that”. Indeed, with some questions, you’re better off saying that as opposed to trying to answer. For example, “When did you stop beating your kids?” is a question that is best left alone under all circumstances. But as the questions move closer and closer toward legitimacy, then the ability to answer without divulging and without lying becomes harder and harder. Politicians are masters at this game. Baseball managers are not, so maybe the badgers could cut the managers some slack by not trying to force them into a situation where they either have to lie or look stupid.
To gain competative advantage by lieing, isn’t that what Ken Lay did or am I just comparing apples to oranges?
On the otherside of it, when was the last time you noticed you were speeding on the road, and then drove to the police station to go let them know to give you a ticket?
Fascinating topic. Transcends Sports.
Ever see a 3 year old lie?? Adorable and sad at the same time.
Sports figures, despite Barkley commercials, are role models. When they lie it sends off the wrong message paticularly about sportsmanship.
So is it a good lie or a bad lie??
I dont know.
Speaking of lying – according to G. Larson & W. Oldham – police officers right to lie has been upheld by the Supreme Court numerous times. According to them, lying is an invaluable, irreplacable means of collecting information.
So, if some poor kid is being interrogated then three detectives get to tell him: We have your prints (lie) Your buddies just ratted you out (lie) and we know you did this (lie). Now if you want to get out of this mess all you have to do is sign this confession. (lie)
Are these good lies or bad lies?? I am not smart enough to figure that out.
the thing is that when I chased a ball to the wall I was hoping for a good carom and seldom knew if the ball was over or under the line, I grabbed the ball and threw it to the cut-off man. the decision on home run or not was not mine, my job was to get the ball to the infield as quickly as possible.
That was also true on fair/foul balls, strikes or ball, safe or out. Not my decision, play it out.
I did once tell the umpire that the pitch did not hit me. He told me it had and to take my base. I was certain at the time that if I had done anything other that take my base he would have thrown me out of the game.
Pride is a wonderful thing.
I remember a couple of years ago when Milwall won the fair play award for good sporting behaviour. They had been playing against Leicester (I think, may have been a different team) and were taking a throw-in after the ball had been put out of play due to an injury to a Leicester player. As is customary Milwall kicked the ball back towards the Leicester goal to give play back to the opposition but the keeper was out of place and the ball ended up going in. Instead of capitalising on this good fortune though Milwall chose to let a Leicester player run through from kick-off and score an immediate equaliser to even things out. Thats good sportsmanship.
Paolo Di Canio also did a similar thing whilst palying for West Ham a few years back as well. He was passed the ball and had the goal at his mercy but upon seeing that the goalkeeper was down injured he put the ball out of play for a throw-in rather than score. I believe that Di Canio was awarded a fair play award for this.
Just a quick comment on diving in football (soccer).
Unfortunately it is seen as an acceptable part of the game in most of Europe/South America and often players will be praised for their “cunning”.
Herer in England/Britain diving is seen as a terrible part of the game that should be driven out. However with the arrival of so many foreign players it has slowly crept into the game a lot more although it is still considered cheating and foul play. One of the worst recent cases was when Robert Pires dived to win a penalty for Arsenal a few years ago. What made the offense worse was that upon viewing the replay it could be seen that Pires not only dived but had actually flung his foot into the defending players as he fell to make it look like a foul.
Another type of lie, courtesy of Norm MacDonald:
“Did you ever lie for no reason at all? Just all of sudden, a big lie spills out of your evil head. Like a guy will come up to you, ‘Hey, did you ever see that movie with Meryl Streep and a horse?’ And you go, ‘Yes.’ In the back of your head, you’re like, ‘What in the hell am I lying about over here? I stand to gain nothing by this lie.’”
A basketball player falls to the court when someone is driving toward the basket. “He ran into me!â€
*** immediately thought of Vlade Divac trying to defend Shaq ***
Kia is the auto industry’s version of Private Labeling. They seem to clone everyone else’s successful cars.
It’s all about the money folks. Integrity and self honesty and responsibility is a thing of the past. The one exception to this seems to be golf, and you are self umpired there. at least I hope it is an exception.