Global Courant 2023-05-17 22:55:00
The New York Yankees have won both games so far in their controversial Toronto road series, though starting pitcher Domingo German may have given the Blue Jays at least some confirmation that the visitors are playing outside the lines.
Just one night after Aaron Judge’s sidelong glance swept the baseball world, Yankees starter German was thrown out of Tuesday night’s game at Rogers Center as umpires checked his hands for the bottom of the fourth.
“The moment I looked at his hand, it was extremely shiny and extremely tacky,” crew chief James Hoye said after the Yankees defeated Toronto 6-3 on Tuesday night. “It’s the stickiest hand I’ve ever felt.”
German denied Hoye’s accusation, saying through an interpreter that it was just a mix of sweat and the mound’s resin bag.
Pitchers have been trying to get an edge over batters for as long as there has been baseball. In relatively modern times, Don Sutton, Gaylord Perry, and Joe Niekro used saliva, petroleum jelly, and bits of sandpaper or nail file to get a head start.
Aaron Judge, designated hitter for the New York Yankees, celebrates a two-run home run on Tuesday-evening. However, it was a home run on Monday night that drew extraordinary attention. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
After years of turning a blind eye to pitchers who improved their grip, Major League Baseball vowed in 2021 to start crackingas grip aids ranging from a gooey mix of rosin and sunscreen to heavy concoctions designed for use in strongman competitions became too much to bear.
While there should probably be a reasonable debate over whether enforcement has been strong enough — German got to wipe the resin off his hands during an April 16 start against Minnesota — he’s not the first to get caught.
Seattle’s Hector Santiago and Arizona’s Caleb Smith were suspended in 2021 for foreign matter rule violations, and New York Mets star Max Scherzer just came back from suspension this month for a similar violation stemming from a game in April.
German likely faces a 10-game suspension and the Yankees would lose a spot on the roster before then.
TV crew playing detective?
Sutton once took offense in 1988 after learning that a Mets broadcast crew had unusually focused the cameras on his hands between pitches.
“Apparently people only watch the game to see umpires and TV playing Columbo,” Sutton said. “Either that, or they’ve got idiots running the TV crew upstairs.”
Which brings us to the Judge verdicts, sparked by Sportsnet broadcasters Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez, who found the right-handed batter’s extra-long look to the right before hitting a home run rather odd.
New York Yankees third base coach Luis Rojas responds during a conversation with umpire James Hoye during Tuesday’s game in Toronto. The Jays have taken offense to what they believe are the wandering tendencies of the Yankee base-running coaches. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
Judge explained that he was trying to give his teammates a nonverbal signal in the dugout to end their chirps about the still-fresh expulsion of Yankees manager Aaron Boone for fighting balls and strikes.
Jays manager John Schneider seemed to disbelieve Judge’s explanation.
“He’s a really experienced hitter who won the MVP last year. I know he just wants to do business and win. I just thought it was kind of funny that he was worried about his dugout while in the batter’s box stood,” he said. Schneider.
Yankees supporters online were armed with their own angry rebuttals. Why would last year’s most valuable player, who already had a home run to his credit on Monday-evening, openly cheat with a 6-0 lead, they wondered.
Jays pitcher Jay Jackson offered Judge a steady diet of sliders, they reasoned, making the Yankees slugger’s challenge less of a last Jeopardy! question and more like a Wheel of Fortune clue with only two letters unturned.
Stealing plates is somewhat legal
Perhaps lost in the wake of some high-profile recent incidents of baseball cheating involving technology is the fact that those who wear the uniforms on the field may use their wiles to get a bead on upcoming pitches and tendencies to fielding and batting their opponents.
To deter board theft, teams often change their signals when an opposing runner reaches second base. Signs can change from batter to batter and even from pitch to pitch. Some say that legendary flamethrower Randy Johnson held his glove slightly differently depending on whether he threw a fastball or a slider – not that it helped most hitters.
“I’ve been in the game for 40 years; I’ve known about it for 40 years, sign stealing itself,” then-Red Sox general manager Dave Dombrowski said in 2017. “I know people I talk to about that that was set in the ’50s that talked to me about sign stealing, so I think sign stealing has been going on for a long time.
Dombrowski’s comments came after the Red Sox admitted to the league that they used an Apple Watch to transmit opposing signals to their own players.
The use of computers, cameras and electronics is not allowed.
The most notorious Houston Astros committed a number of fouls, leading to firings, after fouls were discovered during the 2017 and 2018 seasons, including a World Series campaign.
An MLB investigation found that the Astros used a video feed from a camera placed in center field to monitor the opposing catcher’s boards. Players would bang on a trash can to let the batters know what kind of pitch was coming.
Back to the Blue Jays, pitcher Jackson admitted to the Athletic on Tuesday night that he “kind of tipped the field” the night before.
“It was (less) my grip when I got behind my ear. It was the time when it took me from my regular position, from my glove coming from my head to my hip. On fastballs I was doing it a little bit faster than on sliders. They kind of picked it up,” Jackson told the outlet.
The Jays were angry that the Yankees’ first and third base coaches strayed from their assigned boundaries—the implication being that they would not have been able to see the Jackson tendency otherwise.
“There are boxes on the field for a reason,” said Schneider. “If it’s a blatant 30 feet where you’re not in that spot, kind of put two and two together.”
Nothing but a verbal warning is likely for the Yankees in that regard.
So case closed, controversy over? That remains to be seen, with the Yankees starting Wednesday night ace Gerrit Cole, who has been accused of having gray area advantages over hitters in the past.
