Sticky Fingers
Photo Credit: Rich Schultz/Getty Images
This week, after endless debates about artificial spin rates, Spider Tack, and baseball size, the great crackdown of 2021 has officially come to pass. Beginning Monday, umpires across Major League Baseball now have carte blanche to check any pitcher at any time under suspicion that he may be using illegal substances, whether it be the novel Spider Tack, or combination of necessary substances like rosin and sunscreen. It seems perfectly reasonable that MLB should try and get a substance like Spider Tack removed from use. Not a natural substance to the game, it’s more than fair play to see to its banishment. It does seem fairly silly to assume this is the first year where pitchers tried using this stuff, but let’s put our cynicism to the side for a moment, no matter how justified it may be.
Sure, MLB heard complaints and made adjustments, yet, like it was with steroids, amphetamines, sign-stealing and anti-Free Agency conspiracies, the timing, tenor and execution of these changes has caused more chaos than it appears to have solved. Who could have predicted MLB’s latest efforts to alienate players would be received so poorly?
The world turned to scenes in Philadelphia last night, where umpires were coerced into checking Nationals ace Max Scherzer not once, but twice, the second time upon the request of Phillies manager Joe Girardi in a somewhat tone-deaf display of gamesmanship. Scherzer was most certainly pissed, if not rattled, throwing his equipment (and some of his uniform) to the ground, defiantly allowing the dumpy, middle-aged umpires to grope him like an elementary school nurse checking for lice and scoliosis. Shouting matches ensued, growing men made asses out of themselves, all things one expects to see in the city of Brotherly Love, perhaps, but on the baseball diamond? Connie Mack would turn in his grave, if you ask me…
In Texas, Athletics eccentric reliever Sergio Romo did Scherzer one better, actually moving to remove his pants should the umpire request such an intimate handshake with the former World Champion. Surely we can say thank goodness for vaccination thresholds, this certainly is a new normal.
No pitcher of note was reprimanded in the initial wave of checks, NY aces Jacob deGrom and Gerrit Cole both passed inspection with flying colors. Spin rates were down across baseball, naturally. No one stuck their head in the sand and said this isn’t happening besides Major League Baseball themselves. It’s not hard to see why players are reacting a bit petulantly towards a rule they see as a witch hunt. This is a rule that is actively putting pitchers at risk of injury, just ask Tyler Glasnow, Forcing pitchers to change the amount of pressure they apply to a baseball midseason will cause strain and tension where it wasn't before, you need only logic, not a medical degree, to understand this very basic lesson in physics.
All of this is occurring while those in the game believe the league is the agent perpetuating this issue. Not only were they consulted and warned of this issue by the players themselves, the fact that we’ve seen such dramatic leaps in pitching performance this year should lend more suspicion towards the ever-changing size of MLB’s balls as the tipping point, not substances and practices that have certainly been in use since 2019 when offense excelled at historic rates. Hitters, pitchers, coaches and fans know enough to understand that sunscreen and rosin is not influencing the greatest single-season pitching performance we’ve witnessed in over 40 years.
Major League Baseball has to stop pissing on the legs of their audience all while telling us it’s just a passing shower. We’ve been told for the better part of the last decade that our game is moving too slow, that pitching coaches and catchers need to limit their trips to the mound and that a pitcher must face at minimum three batters, regardless of whether or not the lucky son of a bitch has his fastball that evening. Extra innings games are now decided by phantom baserunners and strokes of idiocy. Everyone agrees the game has tipped too far in favor of pitching, but no one seems to agree on what’s causing such a turn towards monotony. If baseball and its players decide to test the loyalty of fans by perpetuating their disagreements into a work-stoppage, they may find themselves wearing our patience a little too thin. Baseball is, after all, America’s game, we reserve the right to trade it in for something better.