Questioning Jake Peavy’s Dirty Hands
Baseball, Foreign Substance or Dirt? TheBigLead April 7th. 2008, 9:17am
Dirt? Rosin? Pine tar? Nobody’s exactly sure what San Diego Padres ace (and avid hunter!) Jake Peavy had on his fingertips during his 2-hit gem against the Dodgers Saturday night. But since the AP referenced us on the story, and Sportscenter mentioned it, we thought we’d address the photos.
During the 2006 postseason, when Kenny Rogers of the Tigers was pitching out of his mind, cameras picked up something suspicious on his hands, too. When asked about it, Rogers said it was, “A big clump of dirt … It was ‘dirt and rosin’ he used to ‘rub up the baseball,’ and it was ‘left on my hand when I rubbed them up.’” MLB investigated the incident (whatever that means) and Rogers was cleared.
Peavy’s manager, Bud Black, offered virtually the same defense for Peavy: “Playing baseball, your hands get dirty. Jake uses a lot of rosin and it’s a sticky substance. And he wipes his hand on his pants quite a bit and goes to the dirt to sop up the moisture. So your hand will get dirty.” Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt told the LA Times that he thought it was pine tar - which would warrant a 10-game suspension for a pitcher - because “Rosin’s not that dark.”
The dirt defense is one all pitchers will use after the fact. The real solution? Baseball teams putting aside the lame “code” that exists (you know, the one that helped elevate performance-enhancing drug use to Track and Field levels in the 1990s) and calling someone on it during the game. Unless an umpire goes out to the mound to take a look … we’re never going to find out if something more nefarious was at play. Sad responses like the one from Dodgers’ coach Joe Torre - “if I start making a big deal of this — again, I’m not saying he should be allowed to do something that’s illegal — all of a sudden, I’m saying to my players, ‘This is the reason you didn’t get any hits.’ It’s like somebody throwing a spit ball. Well, hit the dry side” - will never accomplish anything.
We always thought Mike Wilbon of the Washington Post had the best take on baseball and cheating: “… Baseball embraces cheating. It’s part of the game’s lore…spitters and carving up the ball and sign-stealing and pine-tar and the like.”
Baseball, Foreign Substance or Dirt? TheBigLead April 7th. 2008, 9:17am
During the 2006 postseason, when Kenny Rogers of the Tigers was pitching out of his mind, cameras picked up something suspicious on his hands, too. When asked about it, Rogers said it was, “A big clump of dirt … It was ‘dirt and rosin’ he used to ‘rub up the baseball,’ and it was ‘left on my hand when I rubbed them up.’” MLB investigated the incident (whatever that means) and Rogers was cleared.
Peavy’s manager, Bud Black, offered virtually the same defense for Peavy: “Playing baseball, your hands get dirty. Jake uses a lot of rosin and it’s a sticky substance. And he wipes his hand on his pants quite a bit and goes to the dirt to sop up the moisture. So your hand will get dirty.” Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt told the LA Times that he thought it was pine tar - which would warrant a 10-game suspension for a pitcher - because “Rosin’s not that dark.”
The dirt defense is one all pitchers will use after the fact. The real solution? Baseball teams putting aside the lame “code” that exists (you know, the one that helped elevate performance-enhancing drug use to Track and Field levels in the 1990s) and calling someone on it during the game. Unless an umpire goes out to the mound to take a look … we’re never going to find out if something more nefarious was at play. Sad responses like the one from Dodgers’ coach Joe Torre - “if I start making a big deal of this — again, I’m not saying he should be allowed to do something that’s illegal — all of a sudden, I’m saying to my players, ‘This is the reason you didn’t get any hits.’ It’s like somebody throwing a spit ball. Well, hit the dry side” - will never accomplish anything.
We always thought Mike Wilbon of the Washington Post had the best take on baseball and cheating: “… Baseball embraces cheating. It’s part of the game’s lore…spitters and carving up the ball and sign-stealing and pine-tar and the like.”
