In light of all of the recent talk about pitch tipping and performance enhancement, it seems like a good time to look back at a time -- not so long ago -- when people didn't get so worked up about breaking the rules. Well, most people, anyway. George Steinbrenner certainly got worked up over Don Sutton scuffing the ball against the Yankees once, and Lar at Wezen-Ball has the amusing details. Money quote from then-Yankees manager Lou Piniella:
Steinbrenner: Lou! The TV cameras found something on Sutton's hand! He's scuffing up the ball! For God's sake, go out and talk to the umpire! He's cheating, and you need to catch him!
Piniella: For the love of God, George! We had Tommy John pitching for us yesterday, and who do you think Sutton learned it from?! And Rick Rhoden's pitching tomorrow night. Who do you think taught it to him? Do you really want me to talk to the umpire about it when we have Sutton's teacher and his student pitching for us right now?!
Aside from the yuks, these kinds of stories are valuable for two reasons: (1) they teach us that people didn't always make a federal case out of rule-breaking; but (2) they also teach us that ballplayers and managers aren't the most reliable sources in the world when asking for comment about the rule-breaking of others. I mean, I think it's interesting that Michael Young, Jeff Brantley, Joe Girardi, and Doug Mientkiewicz have gone on the record defending Alex Rodriguez against Selena Roberts' allegations, but in light of a long history of folks inside the game looking the other way at this sort of thing, we can't automatically take their word on these matters any more seriously than we take Roberts'.
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lets face it...baseball players cheat. its endemic to the game. up to a certain level its thought of as just, "boys being boys". pitchers do whatever they can up to and including directly breaking the rules to get that 2 seamer to break another inch or to get a little extra snap on the tail-end of an otherwise very hittable slider. and exactly because of what that pinella-steinbrenner humerous excerpt aludes to they continue to get away with it. and they probably always will. its sort of become acceptable cheating. turns out gambling involvement in baseball isn't. steroids (now) aren't acceptable either. so where is the line in the sand? for me? this whole steroid thing is sooooo played. its beginning to seem like canseco was right...they all did it. and if you didn't take performance enhancing drugs then you simply missed the boat. i say call it "the steroid era" and leave it at that. the playing field was even it was simply at a different physical level. one thing i hope is that this roberts book says unequivocally that rodriguez used these drugs all along the way and here is THE PROOF. anything less would make the information seem more appropriate in the likes of "people" magazine. it would amount to useless chatter. its the supposed pitch tipping that really rubs me the wrong way. so, where to draw the line? i'd like to go on record as saying it should be drawn somewhere BEFORE pitch tipping. that's my line in the sand!