SI - Verducci: Clay Buchholz has been cheating all season long

Actual headline: “The Truth About Clay Buchholz.”  Said truth?  That not only was he doctoring the ball last night, he’s been doctoring it all season long…and that the start of this behavior mysteriously coincides with his sudden effectiveness as a starter.

Thanks to accusations from Toronto broadcasters and former pitchers Dirk Hayhurst and Jack Morris, Boston pitcher Clay Buchholz has reignited an ageless debate about what constitutes “cheating” in baseball. [...]

It’s unclear exactly what Buchholz is doing, so for now let’s put aside accusations (and gullibility) and stick to the facts. At MLB Network I was able to review in close detail plenty of video of Buchholz from the past two years, including his start in question in Toronto on Wednesday [watch here]. This is what I found to be true:

• Buchholz’s left forearm glistens this year with some kind of substance that is not rosin or perspiration. As the righthander admitted, he does keep water on his uniform and in his hair and does pat the rosin bag on his left forearm—all apparently legal. But rosin is white and has a matte finish. Something wet and mostly clear glistens from Buchholz’s left wrist to his elbow, the moisture of which darkens the edge of his left undershirt sleeve.

• This is not perspiration on his left forearm. His right forearm is dry. There is no darkening on the edge of his right undershirt sleeve.

• He regularly rakes his right index and middle fingers across his left forearm, being careful to keep his other fingers raised.

• Buchholz’s two-seam fastball (thrown with the index and middle fingers on the seams) is much improved with more movement this year; I wrote about this key improvement in his game weeks ago. [...]

I looked at video from last year and found that there are no stains on his left sleeve. There is no glistening on his left forearm. Buchholz is doing something this year with his left forearm that he was not doing last year.

Case closed.

Esoteric throws a 'hard slider' Posted: May 03, 2013 at 02:52 PM | 51 comment(s)
  Beats: blue jays, boston, red sox, toronto

Jose Canseco considers run against Rob Ford to be Toronto mayor

The possibility of a mayoral byelection just got juicier: Jose Canseco, the former Blue Jays slugger once known for his steroid use and now known for his minimally coherent Twitter musings, is considering a run against Rob Ford.

Or so he says. Jose Canseco says a lot of things. Things like “I actually died over night and came back to life now i am a vampire and you are my apprentice.”

Soccer Out of Context: The AL East

If baseball were to follow soccer, here’s a look at how the uniforms might appear.

NYPost: Davidoff—Discussing R.A. Dickey

In which Davidoff explains all!

3. “Why are we just hearing now about these aspects of Dickey’s personality?”

Well, I’ve alluded a few times to them, first in my column on July 10, the day of the All-Star Game and then a few times these last few weeks, particularly when Dickey showed up at the Winter Meetings claiming he needed to be there to see Mets trainer Ray Ramirez. [...]

4. “What other examples do you have of Dickey being self-absorbed?”

a) When he supported the idea of pushing to charge David Wright with an error so he could get a no-hitter in Tampa Bay. The Mets never should have initiated this idea, but Dickey, who needed Wright as a teammate, could have and should have put a stop to it. You think Wright was happy about being put in the middle of this?

b) In Dickey’s book, he wrote about Mike Pelfrey injuring his shin while kicking field goals on spring training of 2011, as part of a silly bet Pelfrey had with Wright. Is this a horrible action by Dickey? No. But it’s an example of him violating teammates’ confidences to boost his own cause; it’s a funny story, but it makes Pelfrey look bad. It’s why Dickey wasn’t a particularly popular teammate.

And as for that assertion of his clubhouse popularity…yes, it comes from anonymous sources. Such is the way of the world. Dickey knows this very well. My credibility, both within the industry and among readers, derives from not making up stuff. From acting responsibly with information gathered from anonymous sources.