Baseball is a hard enough game to play; when you factor in the unwritten rules and the gentleman’s agreements and the look-the-other-ways, it can start to seem more complicated than astrophysics. And it really shouldn’t be.
In the immediate aftermath of Michael Pineda’s adventures at Fenway Park Wednesday night, there was talk Pineda may have scarred his reputation for now, and for a while to come, talk perhaps the young hurler may have gotten a permanent mark etched against his name for the brazen nature of his misdemeanor.
Which is silly, of course.
Because while reasonable Red Sox fans immediately went off the rails and started to scream “CHEATER!” at the top of their lungs — which, in fairness, is the way it would have gone on the other side of The Rivalry if, say, it were Clay Buchholz who decided to slather a Big Gulp-sized dollop of tar across his forehead — it is immediately clear this offense doesn’t fall under the baseball code of “cheating.”
In fact, given the way so many unexpected people immediately started trying to mitigate and minimize the issue — I mean, seriously, even A.J. Pierzynski, baseball’s answer to Conrad Dobler, tried to smooth and soothe things, and Pierzynski has been known to go all Sonny Corleone on foes for a lot less.
Really, the kind of cheating that offends baseball players is hard to categorize. There may never have been a bolder offense than the sign-stealing the Giants used to catch the Dodgers in 1951, and late in his life, even the honorable Bobby Thomson would answer the question, “Did you know what was coming?” thusly: “I still had to hit it.”
The response to that: crickets, mostly.
Even hitting closer to the kind of trickery Pineda apparently specializes in: For years, spit-balling — or scuffing, or doctoring, or however else you want to describe the craft of making a ball spin or sputter in ways Messrs. Rawlings and Spalding never intended — has been, essentially, a charming sub-chapter of baseball. Ah, the rogues! It’s like Spy Vs. Spy, on a baseball diamond. Splendid!
Gaylord Perry used to revel in his rep, touching every conceivable spot where he might have hidden Vaseline, oil, an emery board, a hacksaw, and then zipping a dry-as-a-desert fastball (sometimes) past a freaked-out hitter. Don Sutton scuffed his way right to the Hall of Fame. Even the sainted Whitey Ford used to wink and point at his well-worn wedding ring when asked if he had any tricks of the trade.
Corked bats? Now you started to see a little less humor, a little less winking, though it has become a part of baseball’s urban mythology that on the afternoon of Sept. 7, 1974, a gaggle of Superballs came flying out of Graig Nettles’ bat after he dinked a single at Shea Stadium off Woodie Fryman (in reality, they were merely pieces of Superballs, but as the man once said: When the legend becomes fact, print the legend).
Steroids are a different matter, of course, and players do seem genuine about finding the cheaters now (though they enjoyed a Blue Wall of Silence for a good 10 years before finding religion on the subject). Now, it sounds like the up-and-up players intend to ostracize cheaters the way union players cold-shouldered scabs after the ’94 strike. We’ll see.
And, of course, there’s a category all its own: If A-Rod Does It, Then It’s A High Crime. This is apart from his PED worries, of course, but let’s be honest, until A-Rod did these things, few ever thought about the unwritten rules of a) slapping balls out of fielder’s gloves; b) yelling “HA!” at fielders planted under pop flies; c) crossing over the pitcher’s mound on the way back to a dugout.
And who knows how many other unwritten violations nobody has bothered to write down yet?
Vac whacks
♦ Curtis Granderson’s starting to make contact now. Bobby Abreu has hit a couple of ropes his first few days. Can’t wait to see how Paul O’Neill and Oscar Gamble do in Flushing in the weeks and months to come.
♦ I really, really, really want to like “Turn” on AMC. And I’m really, really ready for the show to prove to me that it’s a not just “Rubicon” with red coats and funny wigs.
♦ There will be no greater gauge to whether the Garden power brokers get to Phil Jackson than if he ever stops tweeting. Until then … enjoy. Because it’s awesome.
♦ Win or lose, there isn’t a team that’s more fun to watch in the NBA right now — and maybe in sports — than the Trail Blazers.
Whack back at Vac
Bob Buscavage: Michael Pineda’s 10-game suspension is with pay and he won’t be fined by MLB. What, no attending a pine tar seminar and performing community service?
Vac: Maybe he should be forced to wear Pine-Sol cologne for the length of his suspension.
Ron Wieck: I guess people don’t remember that 1967 James Bond film, “You Only Live Twice,” where his ally is a member of the Japanese Secret Service. The $155 million dollar man is 3-0 with lots of strikeouts and almost no walks. What does he have to do to get called “Tiger Tanaka?”
Vac: I’m ready to start the campaign right this moment. Anyone else?
@TomHoefner: If Middle-Finger-Gate was between (Yasiel) Puig and the Dodgers instead of Matt Harvey and the Mets, would people still side with the player over the team?
@MikeVacc: My suspicion is the poll results would look a lot different outside Southern California.
Guy Miller: I’m not exactly sorry to see Ike Davis go, but at the same time, let’s stop pretending Lucas Duda is anything more than Dave Kingman with an updated haircut.
Vac: I’m not so sure Mets fans wouldn’t sign on immediately for the Kingman of 1975 and ’76 to start inhabiting young Lucas.