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1. Rickey Fredonia Fudge Duckery Precious Twiddle Posted: June 20, 2012 at 09:26 AM (#4161828)I'm not sure I understand the complaint. Peralta did have pine tar on his glove, right? And Madden's defense is that everyone does it? But when he checked Mattheus' glove the next inning, Mattheus was clean? I must be missing something.
I also like seeing great managers in the game. Davey Johnson doesn't seem to me to have gotten the credit he deserves for the Nationals overperforming of expectations (especially since it hasn't been a function of unexpectedly good health). So I like seeing him get one over on Maddon and get himself in the papers, even if it didn't result in a win.
but i appreciate joe validating what many baseball fans believe and that is that pitchers cheat as a daily practice
with offense down and strikeouts continually on the rise i think it would be worth baseball's time to crack down on this stuff. it enforces existing rules so no new things for umps to remember and it might incrementally push the needle back toward the offense
just something to consider
I think that's it. It's like a speeding ticket, everyone speeds all the time, but it's still illegal, and when you get caught just put your head down and pay the ####### ticket.
Games are going to get a lot longer if that unwritten rule goes away.
Johnson probably didn't want to have face Joel Peralta at that time and decided to pull the pine tar on the glove card.
It didn't work out for him though.
You know what else would keep the games shorter?
Players not cheating.
Evidently it's ok to break the written rules but not the unwritten rules even though the unwritten rules aren't written down so you can never know what they are anyway. I think I like baseball because it's so Kafka-esque.
Accordingly ... viva Joe Maddon!
This.
This too.
All of the whinging about "cheating" is just stupid people who dislike baseball complaining about the way the game of baseball is played.
Imagine if managers would force umpires to enforce other obscure rules such as a standard strike zone, 12 seconds to pitch, "players of opposing teams shall not fraternize at any time while in uniform", the batter must be in the box, and the catcher's balk.
Billy Martin knew about George Brett's pine tar bat for a while and then waited for him to hit a home run before playing that card. However, IIRC Martin knew about it from observation, not from having managed Brett.
Mitch Williams reminded everyone that Davey managed Roger McDowell, who was apparently slippier than a greased pig.
Don’t know why pine tar would be illegal though. IIRC, Zambrano bats without gloves so he must have pine tar on his hands after a couple of ABs. Wonder what he’d do if someone questioned him on it.
Maybe after we replace the umps with robots we could start replacing the players too. Get a pitching machine out there and let someone program what they wanted to deliver in the sequence. Clean all that messy humanity right out of the sport. Later we could just start running 1000 sims every year and deciding the league that way instead.
Unlike the "everyone does it, so now we're going to have to be clean" interpretation I've heard, I suspect the subdued reaction from locker room was more that the Nats pitchers liked Peralta and didn't want him to get suspended for this. Of course, Madden has to make his idle threats about retaliation - which of course, we KNOW he doesn't do for bean balls, right? I agree that if he was really above it, he wouldn't have had Mattheus glove checked. However, I wonder if he'll have Harper's bat confiscated and x-rayed during a strategic atbat. Then Mattheus can find the vent that leads to the umpire's room, and... ah, fergit it.
Leela: Exactly! He was a machine designed to hit blerns! I mean, come on, Wireless Joe was nothing but a programmable bat on wheels.
Bender: Oh, and I suppose Pitchomat 5000 was just a modified howitzer?
Leela: Yep.
This topic reminds me, I know a lot of folks here read Dirk Hayhurst's first book, Bullpen Gospels, but as great as that was his second one, Out of My League, might be better. There's a section in there that pretty much says what's quoted above.
Peralta got a hold? That is an unusual rule.
My guess is it's more along the lines of they don't want to talk about how much they know about Peralta's activities while he was a teammate.
Of course, it's entirely possible that one or more Nats also loads up. Maddon is 0 for 1 so far on identifying the culprit(s); he'll probably get one more crack at it. Good luck!
October 11, 1998 - I'm sitting behind home plate at Qualcomm Stadium as the Padres are hosting the Braves in the NLCS. Padres up 3 games to none at the time.
Ozzie Guillen steps in as the first batter of the game for the visiting Braves and procedes to use his cleats to methodically scratch out the entire back line of the batter's box until no trace of the line is left. He then sets up his stance with his back foot clearly further back than where the line had been (before you ask how I could tell the foot was behind the line that was no longer visible, it was obvious his foot was behind where he had been scratching).
Home plate umpire Greg Bonin didn't say a bleeping word.
However, sometimes an umpire enforces the box. Ask Carl Everett.
Because baseball players have been scratching out the box since 1880 or so.
?
Didn't he disallow the HR, which then caused Brett to lose his marbles, which was finally followed by the ejection? Maybe I'm remembering wrong.
Even more so, because baseball is hard! A guy feels more comfortable setting up with his back foot slightly out of the box, but otherwise approaches the at bat properly, you don't pick nits on that. Baseball is not a game played by rules-lawyers. Some jackass starts standing a foot in front of the plate, outside of the box, in order to cheat on a slow knuckler or something, sure, you hammer his ass and get him back in the box. A guy hangs over the plate inside and reaches for the HBP, you call it a strike and tell him to step back a bit. But the back line of the box?
If he's not impeding the catcher you leave it be.
As for pine tar, pitchers put #### on the ball. ALL THE TIME. Hitters steal signs. It's called baseball. You might look into it one day. Great game, really.
Coke in spirit- couldn't reply from my phone. McClelland called out Brett, who then went apeshit and got himself tossed.
Billy Martin also played shenanigans with Dave Phillips when the game was resumed. Luckily Lee McPhail knew it was coming and took care of most of the ugly work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tar_Incident#Base_touching_affidavit
It seems there's a sort of common law to this stuff, and it's usually a matter of whether the other team complains. Since neither catcher wants the box to be where it is, and neither team's batters do, nor the coaches, nobody ever complains. If they did (as with pine tar) the umpires would have to enforce it.
This is part of the ethos of the sport, where it's even possible for a run to score illegally (runner misses third base) unless the other team appeals. It's strange to think of football running along those lines. ("Yes, we saw that the defense had 13 men on the field, but you never said anything ...")
But that guy that you want to hammer in the ass is doing the same thing that the guy who is setting up with his back foot out of the box is doing.
This conversation took an unexpected turn.
If Ozzie Guillen scratched out the back line and then set up with his entire back leg out of the box, he'd be called on it. (See also Carl Everett.) A few inches here or there isn't going to get called.
Rosin is a foreign substance and there's a whole bag of it in the mound. Add a little bit of sweat and that thing sticks anywhere. Why is it legal and pine tar not?
This. The History of Baseball is the history of a hard game played by hard men, with a constant balancing act of just how much the scoundrels will be allowed to get away with. When the pendulum swings too far, like the out of control dirty play in the early years of the National League, a corrective comes along, like the establishment of the American League. That did not turn baseball into a "gentleman's pursuit", as anyone who ever rooted for Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth could attest.
Baseball's ethos has never been "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game". It's "If you ain't cheating, you ain't competing", or perhaps "It's not cheating if you don't get caught". Which is why baseball really is America's game, the game of a nation founded by smugglers and populated by jaywalkers and tax chiselers.
If you don't appreciate this aspect of the game, then you don't appreciate baseball as it's always been played. Baseball is not James Earl Jones spouting platitudes in a corn field -- it's Gaylord Perry and a tube of vaseline.
I always thought that movie starred Al Pacino.
But the whining doesn't have a place, either don't be bothered and shrug it off or get angry and start to throw punches. But don't ####### whine like this.
Okay, but Peralta got caught, so now what?
I don't see anybody whinging about cheating, or calling for Peralta to be banned or anything like that. My only question is how we end up here:
"Humanity" in the form of Peralta putting crap on his glove: The Essence of Life
"Humanity" in the form of Davey asking the ump to look at Peralta's glove: Worse Than Hitler
"Humanity" in the form of Maddon asking the ump to look at Mattheus' glove: Good on Ya, Joe!
I will critique Maddon for this. The proper course of action would have been to have the next pitcher throw behind the head of the next batter, and let Davey know what's up.
And then it rolled right into:
DB
I always thought – and could certainly be wrong – that baseball rosin is used mainly to dry the pitcher's hand and prevent the ball slipping out uncontollably. (It's the same stuff that dancers dip their toes into, right?) Putting the rosin powder in a bag ensures that just enough gets into contact with the hand so that it doesn't leave globs of rosin on the ball. And anyway, rosin, as string players know, is solid, not gummy, and doesn't adhere well to surfaces unless you rub it directly on with some force. So rosin powder won't have the effect of making the ball asymmetrical (as vaseline and spit and scuffmarks do), and it's thus pretty useless for spitball purposes. I suppose you could throw a spitball if you rubbed violin-bow rosin directly onto a ball for about five minutes, but that doesn't happen. And at that, the pitcher is not allowed to apply the rosin bag directly to the ball.
?
Didn't he disallow the HR, which then caused Brett to lose his marbles, which was finally followed by the ejection? Maybe I'm remembering wrong.
He disallowed the HR *and* called Brett out, which was the final out of the top of the ninth inning with the Royals down by a run, so the game ended and there was no ejection.
Upon protest, the league subsequently overruled McClelland, restoring the home run and declaring that the game would have to be completed from that point (two outs in the top of the ninth, Royals up by one). However, Brett was ejected for the remainder of the game for his outburst as were several others. The Royals ended up winning the game when the ending was finally played, 25 days later.
The ruling on the field was overturned because pine tar was not deemed to provide the batter with an advantage, and its prohibition was merely a matter of the league saving money, so Brett did not violate the spirit of the rules.
For anyone who is not familiar with the whole story of the incident, which involved the ejection of Gaylord Perry, the only time since 1970 that a lefty played 2B in the majors, a famous pitcher playing CF -- I won't tell you who they were -- as well as a notarized affidavit from the umpires that Brett had touched all four bases on the homer, I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia entry on the subject.
One of my favorite baseball moment is still a Cubs game years ago. Tie game, ninth inning I think, and the runner on third tags up and scores the winning run. Everyone starts walking off the field, everyone except the third base ref who just stands there. After a few moments someone figures out what is happening and gets the ball and throws it to a player hustling over to third base. Out signals the ref, the guy left early. Everyone heads back onto the field and the game continues.
See, that rule could be cut down by 90% or so.
"Base coaches may not interfere with the normal course of play."
Every umpire in baseball would be able to call that without problem. Accept Angel Hernandez.
This is your argument as to why Johnson should have bit his lip and not said anything for fear of offending someone instead of trying to win the damn game?
As my personal savior?
I'll pass.
RDF.
The rule book should be shredded and re-written not to exceed 10 pages.
And then drowned in a bathtub?
Yes.
In high school, I watched a game where both teams showed up with fairly similar uniforms (slightly different shades of blue on the jerseys, but same pants and caps and since it was high school, it wasn't like they packed an extra set). On a play at third base, the third base coach (an extra player) stood by third base and, as far as the right fielder could tell, was throwing to his third baseman.
Except the third baseman wasn't at the base. The coach then let the ball go past him and the runner scored. There was much yelling about this, but the umpires let the run stand.
I'm not too bothered about this kind of cheating either way. Ideally I am a "may the best man win" kind of guy, but that's an aesthetic preference more than anything else. I might have an aesthetic preference for an offence based around speed rather than walks, but at the end of the day a win for the good guys is a win no matter how they get it.
I do like the idea of a nation of jay-walkers. If there's one universal trait that English people seem to have it's amazement at the concept of jay-walking. It's almost treated like an urban legend here, no one believes that crossing the street could actually be against the law.
I still can't remember the day Earl Weaver came out of the stands and tore up the unwritten rule book at home plate. Ken Kaiser had to throw him into the game.
I cannot begin to imagine how you got that from what I said. The only thing possibly wrong with what Davey Johnson did was that he called out a guy about whom he had inside knowledge, because he used to play for him. That bothers some people, in an "unwritten rules" kind of way. As a practical matter, the guys who play for him today have to wonder how far they should trust him with their bag of dirty tricks; and are a little embarrassed by having one of their former mates "called out" like that. Of course, Johnson played most of his career before free agency, when player movement was more restricted, and fraternizing with opposing players -- even former teammates -- was frowned on, so he may approach this from a very different frame of reference, and I respect that point of view. When a guy gets traded to another team and comes back to play against you, you should assume he has told his new mates all about your signs, so you have to change them. By the same token, Peralta should have been aware that Johnson knew about his proclivities, and been more circumspect.
The people I was complaining about were the ones who looked at loading up the ball as some major sin against humanity and all of the goodness and light inherent in the saintly pursuit of Base Ball.
Peralta shouldn't break the rules. If he breaks the rules, he shouldn't complain when he gets caught. If the Rays know he's breaking the rules, they shouldn't complain when he gets caught either.
Sometimes it really is simple.
He never played for Davey. He last pitched in Washington in 2010, when Riggleman was the skipper.
Then fuck 'im. You wanna cheat, don't get caught. It's not cheatin' that offends me, it's incompetence.
You were agreeing with the crazy guy (Sam H?) who was using that exact same line of argument to bash Johnson (and the people defending Johnson).
If that didn't mean you were agreeing with his underlying point, I apologize, though then I don't really get who your comment ("If you don't appreciate this aspect of the game, then you don't appreciate baseball as it's always been played") was addressing.
Never said it did (or didn't). THat wasn't Srul's point, which is why I corrected him.
All the people in this thread who were overreacting to Peralta's great sin.
This conversation took an unexpected turn.
Matt Stairs has inside knowledge
I read this, but don't remember it well. However, I just found out that, in Game 7 of the 1934 WS, with the Cards ahead 11-zip in the top of the 9th, Jack Rothrock tried to bunt for a base hit (fouled it off). "Unwritten Rules" guys might assume that'd be worth a plunking, or at least an inside pitch, or something. But, no, he just struck out on the next pitch, and the radio announcer didn't say anything about how un-classy it was to try & bunt in that situation.
All of which makes me think that particular UR is of a more recent vintage than 1934.
Yeah, I don't see anyone doing that.
I soil you in absentia.
People complaining about Perralta here are retarded.
You only see what you want to see. I can't help you with that.
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