Dirt is a foreign substance. You cannot rub dirt on the ball. A dirty ball is replaced every time by the ump. The only thing allowed to be applied to the hand is rosin. Period. Nothing can be applied to the ball and nothing can be applied to your hand except rosin. They make exceptions to licking the fingers and blowing into your hand when it's cold.
There was alot of debate and alot of shows on this last night and LaRussa was actually in a difficult position. He could have been thrown out of the game had he said something at the time it was happening without further information.
According to the rules, managers can't use TV footage during a game. If someone called him and said what was going on in the 1st, he couldn't bring it to the attention of the umps without different information. Yes, some of the players were saying the ball moved funny and the fouled balls had pine tar on them. Excused would be from the bat fouling them off regardless of where the bat scuff was to pinie tar. When this was brought to the umps attention in the 2nd, he said pitches didn't look funny to him, but he will tell Rogers to wipe his hands (which he already did).
When Rogers walked off the field to the dugout in the 1st, he was told by Detroit Coack Van Slyke (former Card) to wipe that off, which he did (you can see Rogers head down the tunnel). When the Ump approached Rogers in the 2nd, Rogers had his roid attitude going on (you can see him raising his arm and walking away from ump).
You can also see Rogers has a different color under the bill of his cap than the rest of the Tigers. Why? The black under bill of the cap better hides pine tar. Watching video of him the rest of the game...he goes to his cap before every single pitch. Coincidence I'm sure, but he rarely did that in the ALCS games he pitched. But why would he. He had the same magic dirt on his hand.
Rest assured, if this goes to a game 6, we will see a different Kenny.
Apparently, the umpires do not regard dirt as a foreign substance:
""Dirt is not a foreign substance. That's the playing surface. … There was absolutely no detection that he put anything on the ball by any of the umpires. That rule regards if he deliberately put something on the ball to doctor the ball. There was an observation, and [Marquez] saw there was dirt, and he asked him to take it off... Because it was observed as dirt. "Umpires, they've been around for more than a week or so. This is not their first summer away from home, so they've got a pretty good idea as to what dirt is and what a foreign substance is."
---umpire supervisor Steve Palermo
Cordially,