First off, if you really thing that he had dirt on his hand, I know a Nigerian prince who needs you to front him some cash so he can smuggle his fortune out of the country. The kick back for you is gonna be HUGE. Secondly, whoop-dee-damn-doo. He wasn't doctoring the ball, he was trying to get a better grip. Cheating, yes, but a totally different kind of cheating. Pitchers pull stuff like that all the time. He got caught, he washed it off, and he still pitched lights out. If it was THAT big a deal, Law Degree LaRussa would've made it into a Broadway fuckin' production.
So now I'm hearing it was pine tar. Yes, that would give him a better grip on the ball, but still, it's more about the release than the grip. If you aren't throwing the ball with the same "look" every time, it doesn't matter whether you throw a 98 MPH fastball, followed by a 64 MPH curve and topping it off with an 82 MPH slider. MLB hitters are going to smoke it. Whether he used something to "improve" his grip or not, he pitched lights out ball last night. There's only so much a pitcher can do to cheat, whereas a hitter has quite a number of big time options available. Like I said previously, HGH is going to make a guy a better hitter. A corked bat is going to send a routine fly ball out past the warning track. Now Shade, I'm not trying to offend you or your love for the game. I once held that same adoration for "The National Pastime." The issue is that people aren't that interested in a WS that their team isn't involved in anymore, in general. As you said, people were quick to talk about Rogers cheating today. How apt were they to talk about St. Louis jumping out to the early series lead today though? If not for the cheating incident, would the talk have been about the game, or would it have shifted to football? The rise in the popularity of football over the past decade is well documented. So much so that there has been talk over the past few years of football becoming known as the new National Pastime. It's partly due to the strike, partly due to the blatant steroid use (and it's subsequent effect on some long-standing records,) and the lack of true parity in baseball compared to other sports. It doesn't make the game less valuable to true baseball fans, but those are a dying breed. I applaud you for sticking with the game you love, but most people I talked to today were talking about football. Only one guy I spoke to all day was talking about Rogers.
I am the same way with baseball. Before 1994 I watched just about every postseason game. Now I only watch Mets and Yankees postseason games. Once in a while I watch a non-Mets regular season game, but it's usually out of boredom while I am also reading or playing a video game or something.
There's no way he was cheating. If he was trying to, he would have put that stuff on the inside of his glove or something, where it wouldn't be noticed, not on the ball of his throwing hand where it would be so easy to catch.
Nobody accused Kenny of being a rocket surgeon; but, with the stuff on the heel of his hand like it was, he never had to "go to" his hat or glove to load-up his fingers. According to Hal McCrae, pine tar wasn't the worst of Rogers' cheating. Hal says that Kenny was scuffing balls. I don't think it's even a question about whether or not he was cheating - he was. The only question is: what impact that had on his pitching in the ALDS and ALCS.
Knowing what an asswipe Kenny Rogers is, I vote for the later (that's #2 -- he, he, he). I'm having a Beavis and Butt-Head moment.
It is clearly cheating. I doubt it had a lot of effect on the game, but it is still nonetheless cheating. He deserves to be suspended.
I saw the images today. It was clearly a nice gob of pine tar on the meaty part of his hand below the thumb. I would be shocked if Rogers doesn't get suspended by the league now. As for the scuffing, McCrae better STFU. Every pitcher in major league baseball uses his finger nails on a ball. Not one ball goes more than 3 pitches without some sort of scuff on it. If he starts playing that card, his team's pitchers are in for a rude awakening too. Like I said earlier in the thread, scuffing can only do so much in today's game. A ball is lucky to last more than 10 pitches, so a scuff can never get deep enough to truly change the dip of a breaking pitch, or the movement of a fastball. The pine tar is a bit ridiculous though. It's not like he had a tiny bit, he had a friggin shitstain on his hand. While I still hold that it matters more on the actual ability of the pitcher to throw multiple pitches from the same arm angle, having a more tacky grip is going to help on breaking pitches. The extra spin from a slightly later release is going to make a ball dive significantly. You still need to throw at the same angle, but that release point makes a world of difference. Bad move Kenny. And a worse move by baseball if they don't do something before he pitches again this year. I hate cheaters. The game has lost all of its integrity. So sad for a sport that was ingrained in this nation's consciousness just a decade and a half ago.
Well, naturally. The NJ Giants are a local team. I agree the NFL long ago surpassed baseball, but what you said proves nothing. What would be more telling is if a local football team got better ratings than a local baseball team.
