The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball Blog

Some of the best cheating goes on in the preps, where plays intended to create confusion or deceive the target are much more likely to work.

From the Arizona Daily Star

With one out in the fifth, the game tied at 2, and Dorados speedster Zach Tarbet on first base, Ironwood Ridge coach Nick Allen called for the “Rainbow Play.”
Knowing Tarbet’s reputation as an aggressive base runner, the Nighthawks tried something new. The trick play went something like this:
As Tarbet took off from first, Ironwood Ridge ace Zach Morales threw a fastball to catcher Jake Wilhelm. Rather than try to gun down Tarbet, Wilhelm tossed a rainbow-arched pop-up toward second baseman Brandon Collins.
The entire Ironwood Ridge crew — coaches included — screamed “pop fly” and pointed toward the sky, drowning out the CDO voices. Running with his head down, Tarbet tried to read the Ironwood Ridge fielders that were selling and yelling for the phantom fly ball, and he stopped and turned back toward first base.
If Tarbet would have continued toward second, he would have stolen the bag easily.
Instead Collins fielded the throw from Wilhelm, and Tarbet was caught between first and second base and was tagged out.

Check out the full story: they practiced the play just to get that one player out. Sweet stuff.

(h/t to Adam Stein for the suggestion)

Omar Minaya may get into trouble for a conversation he had with Miguel Cabrera.

From the Sun-Sentinel:

While the Mets were taking batting practice and the Marlins were stretching, Mets General Manager Omar Minaya engaged third baseman Miguel Cabrera in about a 10-minute conversation.

What’s interesting to me is that Cabrera’s not a free agent until after 2009 — three seasons down the road. It’s possible that Minaya was making a long-term pitch (”I’ve always been a huge fan, and we’d love to have you here”) trying to get a foot in the door, hoping that if Cabrera does reach free agency, he’ll say “I’d like to make sure we talk to the Mets.

But really? Three years ahead of time? It seems unlikely.

These complaints do get taken seriously, too — Pat Gillick got fined when he made a phone call to John Olerud (by all accounts innocent but which, the story went, might have endeared Olerud to Gillick and made him more likely to sign with the M’s), who later signed with the Mariners. This is amusing because the Mets, subject of this complaint, were the complainers then and the subject of the complaint now.

Still, as unlikely as it was that Minaya was making a super-quick pitch for the Mets as the free-agent destination of choice, if you’re the Marlins, no harm in complaining. The worst case is you protect your players against more threatening conduct by being aggressive.

(hat-tip to Joe Aiello for the Sun-Times link, and everyone else who sent in other articles)

There were two things I didn’t do in the original champagne post - I didn’t discuss whether I thought there was any wrongdoing, and what I thought an appropriate punishment might be. I ended up discussing this at length in radio interviews last week, and hopefully writing this up will help clarify things. In the future, I’m going to try and be much more complete in discussions like this, and try to offer that - it may be part of the reason the discussion on Yankee Stadium dimensions was pretty level-headed, while others haven’t. I freely admit this is going to be an ongoing process.

First, then: was there any wrong-doing associated with the gift? It’s pretty clear there wasn’t. For one, I’ve never met anyone with a bad word to say about Torii Hunter or Mike Sweeney. There’s no evidence there was any kind of untoward actions.

However, in the same way there’s no evidence that Rose did bad things to the Reds when he was caught betting on baseball, part of the problem is that bets/gifts create the possibility of wrongdoing, or the perception of wrongdoing, and undermine confidence in the integrity of the game. The rule and penalties aren’t there just to punish wrongdoing, they’re there to prevent actions that start down that slippery slope.

At the same time, a number of surprising things came out of this story:
- These kind of gifts happen more than we know, they just don’t make stories where they can be seen by the general public
- Both Hunter, Sweeney, and other team personnel, including GM Terry Ryan, were ignorant of the rule until the story broke. I find this a little hard to believe, especially since the rule’s posted in every clubhouse. And I find it weirder that Hunter, especially, who certainly knows his baseball history, wouldn’t know this. But if it’s a common practice, then it’s likely that either this is true or they just didn’t think it was an enforced rule.

And I agree (and I’ve talked about this elsewhere) that modern baseball has turned the rule into something of an anachronism. When players made little money, payoffs from other teams could make a huge difference in their lives, and could drive drastically different action. Today, when even the player making the minimum clears 300k, they’re immunized to a certain degree against bribery. A couple bottles of nice wine isn’t likely to make a modern player bat an eye.

But the rule remains. Baseball, through free agency and the rise of salaries, saw fit to keep the misconduct rule on the books.

What then is an appropriate punishment? I think baseball had two possible actions:

Significant action. Whether or not it happens other places, whether or not other people were doing it, it violates the rule, and the rule’s there for a reason. They might mitigate the punishment, but if baseball’s serious about enforcement of the rule (and their continued treatment of Rose would indicate they are) then every discovered instance needs to be acted on. If they’ve slipped on enforcement before, then they begin enforcement with this instance.

Token action, admit culpability. If baseball is going to let them off the hook, it should be part of a larger action. I’d have said “Having talked to everyone involved, we realize that there was no improper intent, and we’ve found no actions taken.” And then you admit the larger failures:
- We’ve failed to adequately inform the players and teams about the rule and its implications, and will be issuing a clarification memo and working with the MLBPA to ensure everyone’s well-informed about what constitutes a violation and knows the punishments
- We’ll be re-examining the rule in the off-season to discuss if there are revisions we should make: whether there’s room for gestures such as this, possibly a limitation on a gift’s value, or whether any gift allowance creates the room for perception of improper conduct and should remain prohibited

I’m entirely in favor of the latter. It allows baseball to avoid having to suspend two players for being unfortunate enough to be caught, but allows them to choose where they want to draw that line in the future - and where they put that line would be as much a public relations issue.

In general, I’m in favor of having a set of rules that are clear and applied fairly, and being aggressive about resolving contradictions and sections (like the game suspension/calling) that are likely to cause problems in the future, instead of waiting for a scandal. Anyone should be able to read the rules on anything - like the strike zone - and see the game called according to that rulebook. I don’t believe there should be different strike zones for different pitchers, for instance, though in the book I talk about how pitchers work that to their advantage, and as long as they’re allowed to do that, I applaud them for seeking that extra edge.

Or Gaylord Perry - one of the things I most admired about Perry is that each time the rules about what he could do on the mound changed, he adapted his routine to fit. He was a rule-abiding cheater, if you understand what I mean by that.

Baseball’s actual response - to get the gift returned and then do nothing about it at all - sends a really strange message:
- It’s wrong to do this
- If you do it and get caught, we’ll force you return it
- Though it’s wrong and we’ll act if you’re found out, we won’t enforce the penalties associated with the rule

It’s another part of a larger problem with baseball’s enforcement of many rules, which is that it’s okay to break rules unless we decide to enforce them — this is a future post, but it’s a lot like the rules about the DL, which teams regularly violate, MLB knows that a lot of the injuries are exaggerated or entirely made up, and the only time a team gets dinged is if the New York head office is mad at them for something unrelated.

If this had been Jose Canseco and Albert Belle in 1994, would Selig have been so forgiving, so quick to accept that a simple return of the gift would suffice?

This post’s run a lot longer than I thought it would. I hope that’s a reasonable explanation of the context I didn’t provide when I wrote about the incident and the history of Rule 21.

Kirk Radomski pled guilty to distributing anabolic steroids and laundering the money. The Smoking Gun has the plea agreement. Spoiler: no names in the agreement.

The short timeline: worked for the Mets 1985-1995, and then dealt drugs 1995-2005, when the police searched his house.

Interesting points:

He contacted some personally, but also did business through the telephone and mail. If this is the case, there will be phone records and other records to be traced back.

He’s agreeing to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including testimony, providing documents. This includes “f. I will not reveal my cooperation, or any information related to it, to anyone without prior consent of the government” and “g. I will participate in undercover activities…” both of which seem a hard to pull off now.

This is likely much bigger than the last dominoes: the Jason Grimsley roll-over, or the online pharmacy busts, which still haven’t affected anyone now playing.

We’ve only seen MLB punish one player (Grimsley) for a drug offense not related to testing positive. If Radomski’s cooperation provides a long list of players that he sent anabolic steroids to after baseball implemented its drug policy, it’s going to be an unwelcome series of decisions for the Commisioner’s office to make, and one, I’m sure, they’d rather not have to confront.

(hat tip to Thomas Nast for the Smoking Gun link)

Rob Muhlhausen wrote:

So, the Yankees new stadium, which is opening in 2009, is being advertised as having the same dimensions as the current Yankee Stadium. Yankee Stadium currently is 318ft. down the left foul line and 314ft. down the right foul line. Major League Baseball rule 1.04(a) says, “Any Playing Field constructed by a professional club after June 1, 1958, shall provide a minimum distance of 325 feet from home base to the nearest fence, stand or other obstruction on the right and left field foul lines, and a minimum distance of 400 feet to the center field fence.” Aren’t the Yankees breaking the rules here?

Yes. But the Commissioner allows them to do it. While many parks have their fences at the minimum required distance, the last wave of ballparks had many that violated the space requirements:
- AT&T Park
- Minute Maid Park is 315 feet down the left-field line
- Oriole Park at Camden Yards is 318 feet down the right field line
- Petco Park is 396 feet to center field and 322 feet to right field
- PNC Park is 399 to center and 320 to right field

In each case, the team went to the Commish and said “hey, we’d like to put the fences closer than the rules allow” and he waived the requirement. Presumably, that’s what the Yankees will do to have their new digs built with dimensions that violate the rulebook requirement.

This raises an obvious question: if the Commissioner regularly waives the requirement, why is the requirement in the rules at all?

I don’t know. The league’s argument would probably be that the rules are designed to prevent a team from building a field that’s too crazy, and that requiring the Commissioner to review plans that violate the rule ensures that they can be sure that the close foul lines (or whatever the other tweak is) aren’t egregious, and the outfield ground’s made up in the power alleys (or somewhere).

But that’s not what happens - Minute Maid Park’s played as a severe hitter’s park since its inception, dragging up the whole league’s run-scoring. If the rules are intended to ensure that the game’s played within certain general run-scoring parameters, the way this is implemented has failed.

Considered this way, there’s nothing wrong with letting the Yankees build a new stadium with the same dimensions as the old. We have decades of information on how the current park plays, and it’s obvious it plays normally. Yankee Stadium today isn’t an oppressive pitcher’s park or a band box. As long as the Commissioner’s granting exceptions, there’s no reason you wouldn’t let this by.

In another way, though, giving this discretionary power to the Commissioner is part of baseball’s long move during Selig’s reign to put more and more authority to Selig, and includes other actions like the abolition of the league presidents (which is also not reflected in the rules). All of that allows him to award or punish teams based on his own feelings about the franchise, which in turn allows him to wield a huge stick in forcing draft slotting, for instance. Andrew Miller didn’t drop to the Tigers because the other teams didn’t want him. But that’s another topic entirely.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Monday afternoon, the Twins received a telephone call from the commissioner’s office. The Twins contacted the Royals, who agreed to send all four bottles of Dom Perignon back to Minnesota. Yes, Twins General Manager Terry Ryan said, those bottles are still unopened.

“I’m to blame as much as anybody because I didn’t know the rule,” Ryan said. “We’ll end up righting the wrong. We’ve already contacted the Royals. They’re going to return the goods, and hopefully that’ll be the end of it.”

The general manager of a major league team didn’t know the rule on misconduct posted in every clubhouse? The rule on betting and bribery? I’m surprised that would be the case.

The paper does quote Ryan on why it’s important:

By letting Hunter’s gesture pass, MLB would have to consider the precedent.

“Integrity of the game; it’s as simple as that,” Ryan said. “This is an honest, trivial exchange, but it could grow into something different if you let it get away.”

We’ll see what happens.

Check out this CNNSI story:

Authorities said Martinez flashed the powerful light at the players in the bottom of the eighth inning from his seat behind home plate. He was quickly ejected from the game.

One of the things I tried to run down while writing The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball were incidents of fans in Baltimore using mirrors to blind visiting players as a coordinated strategy, particularly when the players were trying to catch fly balls.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find enough contemporary evidence that it was something fans did in numbers, or as part of any kind of strategy. It was a lot easier to do when all the stadiums were outdoors and the games were played during the day, of course.

This is the first time I’ve heard of someone behind home plate using a flashlight, though.

hat tip to David Steinberg for the article

From today’s Kansas City Star, on Mike Sweeney:

Sweeney found four bottles of Dom Perignon in his locker after the game. They represented the completion of a promise from last season by Twins outfielder Torii Hunter: a champagne party for sweeping the Tigers in the final series last season, which enabled Minnesota to win the American League Central Division.

This is dangerous. It’s prohibited in Rule 21, Misconduct:

(b) Gift for defeating competing club. Any player or person connected with a Club who shall offer or give any gift or reward to a player or person connected with another Club for services rendered or supposed to be or to have been rendered in defeating or attempting to defeat a competing Club, and any player or person connected with a Club who shall solicit or accept from a player connected with another Club any gift or reward for any services rendered, or supposed to have been rendered, or who, having been offered any such gift or reward, shall fail to inform his League President or the Commissioner or the President of the Minor League Association, as the case may be, immediately of such offer, and of all facts and circumstances connected therewith, shall be declared ineligible for not less than three years.

Did Sweeney inform Selig when Hunter made the offer? Did Selig tell him it was okay? Or are we going to see both Sweeney and Hunter sit out for three years? Orrrr is baseball going to ignore this?

Three years seems a harsh penalty, but there’s a reason behind it. As I discuss in The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball, the misconduct rules, which cover gambling, payoffs, and other like behavior, came into being as baseball tried to move away from the close ties to gambling and crime interests that led to the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Howard Rosenberg documents more incidents of these kind of payoffs than I can easily recount in his Cap Anson series, particularly Cap Anson 2: The Theatrical and Kingly Mike Kelly: U.S. Team Sport’s First Media Sensation and Baseball’s Original Casey at the Bat, and Ginsburg’s The Fix Is in: A History of Baseball Gambling and Game Fixing Scandals.

When teams made friendly bets on who would win a series, it was mostly innocuous, but it was in these same kind of bets and payoffs that some of the worst cheating was forged. By paying off another team to take out a divisional opponent, teams affected the strategies used and tampered with the game’s outcome: if there’s a large monetary reward to beat the team you’re playing today, there’s a huge incentive to do everything you can, even if it means you’ll be much worse off when you face the next team.

Those kind of bets and payoffs led to the constant noise in baseball up to the Black Sox scandal, when many division races were affected (or just as damningly, from a public perspective, rumored to be affected) by one competitor paying a third team, out of the race, to beat their rivals for the pennant. It wasn’t far from paying a team to beat another to paying them to lose to you, and when teams were taking money coming and going from outside sources in other teams, it wasn’t a big jump to take money from gamblers and other interested parties…

This is why baseball put such huge penalties around gambling, and these kind of friendly wagers and promises of gratitude: it’s a remnant of baseball’s hard-won experience fighting corruption. As time’s passed, baseball’s forgotten those lessons. For a long time, baseball wouldn’t associate at all with casinos, even exerting pressure on former players to refuse work as greeters, and now they’re happy to run ads for casinos in stadiums.

We’ll see if they take any action on this violation of the misconduct rule. I’d bet on no.

For a ridiculous amount of additional information on gambling, there’s a whole chapter in The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball, or you can check out the Rosenberg or Ginsburg books for entire volumes devoted to it.

hat tip to Ian for the pointer to the article

From this interview at White Sox Interactive:

ML: How about the ‘doctored’ baseballs and the field? How much did that have an effect?

JK: “We knew that they doctored home plate. That was because they had all those ground ball and sinker ball pitchers, and one time I was pitching against them and the baseball felt like a snowball in my hand, it was that cold! When I came to the Sox I remember talking to Roger Bossard (Author’s Note: Now the White Sox head groundskeeper) and I said something like ‘I’m pitching Saturday, make sure you’ve got the field ready.’ (laughing) And it’s a fact that the Sox used to have a light in the scoreboard at Comiskey Park that would tip off their hitters as to what kind of pitch was coming. Today the teams are more concerned about beautification of the field then about giving the home team an advantage.”

I discuss the White Sox freezing baseballs and the sign stealing in two chapters of The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball.

When I wrote the K-Rod post (and follow-ups), many people wrote in to offer other pitchers I should look at, and Joe Nathan came up a lot. So skip ahead a few weeks, and right now I’m watching him pitch against the Mariners — and there’s pine tar on his cap. I saw it a lot heavier in some of the evidence readers sent in, but there’s a light-brown patch on his brim that’s almost the exact same size of the four fingers of his hand.

It’s not resin. Even if you want to argue that whatever was under K-Rod’s cap was a wacky localized migration from the rosin bag, here’s a pitcher with something that couldn’t possibly get there without his knowledge (unless you want to argue that someone else regularly puts pine tar on his hat and he doesn’t notice).

Interestingly, though, while I’ve seen the pine tar much heavier and I’ve seen him directly rub pine tar spots while getting ready, tonight I didn’t see him touch that pine-tar smear at all — but he went to the back of the cap with his hand repeatedly, including a couple rubs. Unfortunately, watching on TV you don’t get good close-ups of the back of his cap, but it didn’t look like there was something there.

All of which raises a different set of questions for me —
If Nathan didn’t go to the pine tar to get a better grip, why risk going out there like that, unless (as we saw with K-Rod) pitchers having illegal personal stashes of sticky substances on their uniform goes unenforced?

If he’s not using it to get a better grip on a cold, damp night - when he went out there, it was about 44 degrees, 82% humidity, raining very lightly - when would he use it? Or is it not about grip at all?