The Departed
Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2018 1:43 am
this is from Buster Olney article on ESPN. He makes a key point that managers don't challenge this because they have pitchers on their team's using pine tar. In my view they need to make this legal or enforce the rule. I thought that in cold weather pitchers could go to their mouths (off the mound). That should be sufficient. I also don't understand how this could have been allowed to become prevalent.
Pine tar is broadly viewed as a pitch enhancer, increasing spin rate in an era in which additional spin rate is measured and valued.
A lot of pitchers are using foreign substances out in the open, ignoring the written rules that Bauer referenced.
[highlight]Opposing managers do not ask umpires to check for foreign substances because they know that some of their own pitchers are using them. Major League Baseball is certainly aware of the shiny forearms and dabs of stuff stuck in gloves -- anybody can see them -- and hasn't moved to enforce or rewrite the rules.
[/highlight]The enforcers of those rules, the umpires, don't check on their own volition. Heck, last April, a baseball stuck to the chest protector of Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, and it was widely assumed that Molina -- like other catchers -- wore a layer of pine tar to apply to the baseball in an effort to aid the pitcher. There wasn't any serious follow-up that we know of.
Link to article: http://www.espn.com/blog/buster-olney/i ... tten-worse
Pine tar is broadly viewed as a pitch enhancer, increasing spin rate in an era in which additional spin rate is measured and valued.
A lot of pitchers are using foreign substances out in the open, ignoring the written rules that Bauer referenced.
[highlight]Opposing managers do not ask umpires to check for foreign substances because they know that some of their own pitchers are using them. Major League Baseball is certainly aware of the shiny forearms and dabs of stuff stuck in gloves -- anybody can see them -- and hasn't moved to enforce or rewrite the rules.
[/highlight]The enforcers of those rules, the umpires, don't check on their own volition. Heck, last April, a baseball stuck to the chest protector of Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, and it was widely assumed that Molina -- like other catchers -- wore a layer of pine tar to apply to the baseball in an effort to aid the pitcher. There wasn't any serious follow-up that we know of.
Link to article: http://www.espn.com/blog/buster-olney/i ... tten-worse
