Baseball Rant: Doctored Baseballs

After hearing about the recent ejection and 8-game suspension of Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Joel Peralta for using pine tar to improve his grip, I started confusing myself trying to figure out the backwards logic of most pitchers. And I have yet to find the answer to the contradiction of pitchers (or catchers) asking for a new baseball when they find the one they are using has been accidentally scuffed.

I’ve always been under the impression that scuffing up a baseball would increase the movement of a pitch, even fastballs. In fact, I know I’m not alone. Many Major League pitchers agree. So much so, that some have been caught artificially roughing up the ball. Rick Honeycutt, pitching for the Mariners, was caught with a thumb tack taped to his finger. Whitey Ford ironically used his wedding ring to cheat and, at times, employed the use of his catcher, Elston Howard, to rub the ball against the buckle of his shin guards.  Gaylord Perry used K-Y Jelly, fishing line wax, slippery elm tablets, mud, vaseline, and gum to doctor his baseballs.

The most famous, perhaps, was Joe Niekro using an emery board and sandpaper shaped to fit his finger. The video of his attempt to hide his dishonesty is pretty laughable. It looks like an awful, disappearing magic trick in which he forgot to inform his teammates that they were supposed to play a role.

I’ve heard stories of catchers “losing their balance” after catching a pitch and using the ball to maintain their balance, rubbing and scuffing it on the dirt that is much rougher than it looks on TV. I’ve heard that some pitchers have even gone so far as to concoct their own mixture of soda or water and dirt and discreetly hide it…on the front of their jersey.

So why do pitchers and catchers ask for new baseballs as readily as they do, when some go out of their way to create the same effect artificially and illegally, I might add? It would seem to me that the batters and umpires should be the paranoid ones requesting exchanges of old for new at even the hint of a scratch or scuff.

According to the MLB, about 72 baseballs are used per game and at $3.00 apiece, that adds up to just under $350,000 spent on balls used in-game per season. Times are tough Major League Baseball, why don’t we try to save some money and think about a little conservation? I’m sure pitchers would be on board.