THIS is pine tar"
And, yes, it is signed by the man himself.
Posted on 10/23/2006 6:59:40 AM PDT by MAD-AS-HELL
DETROIT -- Kenny Rogers pitched eight scoreless innings Sunday, running his shutout streak this postseason to 23 innings while helping the Tigers even the World Series at a game apiece.
And yet, all anyone can talk about is Rogers' dirty left hand.
Early in the Tigers' 3-1 win over the Cardinals, there appeared to be a dispute about something on Rogers' pitching hand. Television cameras caught a brownish substance, possibly dirt, on the palm of Rogers' left hand in the first inning, and showed it several times. By the second inning the substance was gone, and the pitcher's hand looked clean.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
And that is exactly what happened. Per the AP article on the incident :
The flurry of between-innings meetings started after the first inning, when the umpires and La Russa talked out by first base.
Then, after the top of the second, Rogers was greeted by plate ump Alfonso Marquez as he walked off the field toward the dugout, and the two of them chatted for a full minute. Then Leyland came out of the dugout and he and the umpires spoke.
Then, after the bottom of the second, Marquez went over to the crowd and spoke with Steve Palermo, an umpire supervisor who was sitting in the front row next to the Detroit dugout.
Well, that's just racist. If he'd had darker skin, no one would notice.
(I'm surprised at least one dumb sportswriter hasn't brought up the race angle.)
ping
With televeision coverage I can't say for sure, but it sure look liked the umps were having a series of meetings and never put a sharp end to with the managers.
All the balls are "dirtied up" before the game. And they use a LOT of balls, not just one ball.
Can't you?
Yes, which is dirt. Which can get on the hands of the Pitcher.
The argument here is that this isn't "dirt", but some other substance. Of course there is dirt on the ball, on his hands, on his shoes, the game is played on a DIRT infield.
There is no indication that there was ANY foreign substance found on any balls, even after the umpires were made aware of it.
And for the suggestion someone else made, if a foul ball ended up in a dugout and had a foreign substance on it, the team would have called the umpire over and showed him the substance, and they would have searched the pitcher.
Oh, if I've learned anything from the NAU threads, it's Exhibit A!
THIS is pine tar"
And, yes, it is signed by the man himself.
Well, that's true...
Indians claim Rogers cheated in pursuit of perfection
Posted: Friday August 09, 2002 9:47 PM
Updated: Monday August 12, 2002 10:18 PM
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Kenny Rogers was a little too perfect to suit the Cleveland Indians.
Rogers flirted with perfection again, retiring his first 21 hitters, and Rafael Palmeiro homered in the ninth inning to give the Texas Rangers a 3-2 win over the suspicious Indians on Friday night.
"I know he was scuffing the ball," insisted Milton Bradley, who got the first hit off Rogers in the eighth inning. "There were five or six balls that all were scuffed in the same spot. He had a sharp fingernail or something."
The game was stopped when Cleveland manager Joel Skinner asked plate umpire Andy Fletcher to go to the mound and check Rogers for anything illegal.
Rogers (12-6), who threw one of baseball's 14 modern-era perfect games in 1994, was bidding to become the first pitcher with two. But he was adamant he was not cheating.
"Check me all you want, go ahead," the left-hander said. "They kicked my tail quite a few times over the years and never said a word then."
When told the Indians collected 15 scuffed baseballs that went out of play, Rogers replied: "I saw some that were scuffed, too. A lot of things scuff the ball. The dirt, the wall. I used those balls, too. I'm not stupid.
"But I didn't do anything."
Rogers was six outs from history before walking Jim Thome on a 3-2 count to open the eighth. Bradley followed with a double to left, ruining the left-hander's bid for the sixth no-hitter in Rangers' history.
One out later, the shutout was gone, too, as Ricky Gutierrez lined a two-run double off the left-field wall, tying it 2-2.
Rogers allowed two runs and two hits over eight innings, striking out four in his 144th career win and 100th in a Rangers uniform.
As far as the Indians are concerned, he reached the milestone in tainted fashion.
Bradley said he first noticed a scuffed ball when Gutierrez fouled one into the dugout. It was the first of several balls the Indians claimed were nicked on the ball's major league logo.
"There were times that the ball had a ridiculous drop to it," Bradley said. "I came back and watched on TV. One time, he walked behind the mound and did something with his thumb to the ball. He must have a good manicure."
Skinner asked Fletcher to go to the mound in the sixth.
"They asked to check my glove and I was the one who emptied my pockets, too," Rogers said.
Nothing was found. Rogers walked around the mound to compose himself after the inspection and got Einar Diaz to ground out to end the inning.
"Some were scuffed, some had scrapes or deeper on them," Thome said. "It was like someone was digging into the ball. We had a lot of balls and they all looked the same..."
----------------------------------------------------
Cordially,
I do not have enough information to be able to judge what the actual facts were out of several possibilites. LaRussa often does things that I do not understand. That's probably why he's a major league manager and I'm not. One possibility is the it was very late in the inning, the last pitch or two of, I think it was Encarnacion's at-bat when LaRussa was just beginning to be made aware of what was happening. The inning did end very quickly, and perhaps it was before he had much of a chance to think about it and decide if it was credible enough to warrant stopping the game. I don't know. I do know that LaRussa does not like 'showing up' the opposition, for what it's worth.
I also don't know why Rogers lied. It may have been simple gamesmanship, as been suggested, or it may have been because he was actually cheating. Again, I don't know.
Cordially,
Wow, that is a classic photo. How did you get it signed?
Come on. Red Birds got beat by the Crafty Veteran. It was pine tar, and it's not that big of a deal. Do you know why La Genius isn't making a big deal out of it? Because it's not. Anything else is sore loserdom.
The Series is tied. It's not like it was Game 7.
See http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-2series102306&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
I think it was pine tar. But seriously, it's not that major of a thing. It's one of those rules that are in the books that everyone usually ignores--except when they need excuses. It's like that pine tar rule with the bat--recall that guy who hit a homerun and then they called him out because the pine tar on his bat was wider than home plate? Dumb rule. See the article linked in my post 153.
For some reason I keep recalling an absolute meltdown from La Russa in the clubhouse - I believe he was berating an A's beat writer who had called in question the manhood of GM Sandy Alderson (who served two tours in Vietnam).
Eh, I don't know if it was meant to be impartial. Judge Landis was thought to be the owners' creature when he was appointed since he had done some pro-owner rulings when on the bench. It is a bad idea to have an owner as commissioner though. The only good thing Selig did was the Wild Card.
There is no way that a commissioner is going to be totally impartial, especially when you consider that the owners pick the commissioner. But appointing a current owner is a real stretch IMO.
Didn't they accuse Candy Cummings of cheating when he unveiled the first curveball?
I didn't. I just did a Google Image Search.
I was at that game.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
