Major League Baseball’s season started earlier this week. MLB and the NFL have one thing in common for me: I can watch just about any game, even if I don’t have a rooting interest in one of the teams.
I was interested to read that St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter complained after Monday’s season opener at Cincinnati that the baseballs were slick.
Carpenter told The Associated Press that some of the balls felt as if they hadn’t been rubbed up with mud, which takes the shine off them. The job is usually done in the umpires’ room before games.
Carpenter, who was the winning pitcher, said the same thing about the baseballs following his final 2009 appearance at the Reds’ home field.
He didn’t say that somebody was cheating. He was just saying … , you understand.
Pro baseball’s unofficial motto is: “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.”
Baseball players — at every level, I’d guess — have been cheating since the game was invented. To me, it’s part of the game’s appeal.
Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com wrote: “(C)heating — or at the very least, pushing the boundaries of what might be considered fair play — goes on daily at ballparks throughout America. It’s a reflection of the nature of the game.
“In contrast to, say, basketball or hockey, which feature constant action, or football, which is notable for massive bodies slugging it out in the trenches, baseball provides the perfect laboratory for dissection and analysis. No sport rewards the power of observation as much, or as strongly encourages thinking innovatively for the sake of the most trivial advantage.
“Call it cheating, or call it gamesmanship. Baseball presents lots of ways to trump your opponent that don’t involve your friendly neighborhood testosterone supplier.”
One of the best-known examples of “gamesmanship” is sign- stealing. Managers and coaches steal signs from other managers and coaches. Runners at second base steal signs from the catcher and signal the batter. Teams use decoy signs. Everybody watches everybody.
Paranoia is a baseball tradition, too.
There’s no MLB rule against stealing signs unless it’s done by electronic means. Which means that somewhere, some MLB team is stealing signs via electronic means.
Altering the ball is illegal at all levels of baseball, but pro pitchers are still throwing spitballs. They don’t always use saliva. Vaseline, hair gel and pine tar are among the foreign substances that wind up on baseballs.
The object is to alter the rotation of the ball, which in turn alternates how the ball breaks.
This also can be done by cutting or defacing the ball. Sandpaper, emery boards, nail files, belt buckles and even a catcher’s shinguard are among the equipment that pitchers have used to get an edge.
Some of the guys at home plate stay busy, too, “corking” their bats. An edge-seeking slugger hollows a section in the barrel of the bat and fills the space with cork or superballs. That gives the batter slightly faster bat speed.
It also makes the bat more likely to break, exposing the hitter as a cheater. Fans seem to be more forgiving of spitters than corkers.
Then there’s field tinkering, which isn’t against the rules. Grounds crews often alter a field in ways that benefit the home team, including letting the infield grass get high to slow down ground balls and tilting the baselines inward so that bunts are more likely to stay fair.
Like I said, some of this “gamesmanship” adds to my enjoyment of baseball. But there’s cheating and then there’s CHEATING.
It turns out that baseball’s surge in popularity since the last players strike in 1994 was fueled in part by steroids and human growth hormone. Some people wondered if the ball was juiced. It turned out that the players — hitters and pitchers — were juiced.
MLB says its testing program has eliminated the once-rampant use of steroids in pro baseball. Uh huh.
What about human growth hormone? There’s no way to be sure. Currently, only a blood test can detect HGH. And the baseball players union doesn’t allow blood tests.
Does this rampant cheating or “gamesmanship” tell us that there’s something wrong with our national pastime or perhaps our nation?
Nah. It just tells us that human beings in every field of endeavor are always looking for an edge. And cheating works.
