Couch: Baseball’s ‘Year Of The Pitcher’ Is A Joke, And Rob Manfred’s Incompetence Is Why

So now baseball is in a sticky situation, having looked the other way while rampant cheating and amazing, but fake, accomplishments were packaged and sold for ratings. This neglect and incompetence from commissioner Rob Manfred is just now blowing up in baseball’s face.

You know all those no-hitters you’ve been seeing? Fake. You know all those strikeouts and pumped up velocity and nasty movement on pitches? Fake. You know the talk about how pitchers have simply gotten too good for hitters?

Fake.

And worst of all: Major League Baseball has known all along.

On Wednesday, St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher Giovanny Gallegos came into the game against the Chicago White Sox in the seventh inning, and umpire Joe West told him to remove his cap, which was then sent to MLB for analysis because it had a suspicious substance on the bill. Gallegos was told he had to get another cap. St. Louis manager Mike Shildt charged out of the dugout, got thrown out of the game and later snitched on baseball, giving up its dirty little secret.

“It’s the wrong time and the wrong arena to expose that,’’  Shildt said, not arguing that his pitcher wasn’t cheating, but only that he had been unfairly selected for enforcement.

It turns out that large numbers of pitchers are putting banned sticky substances on the ball so they can get a better grip on it. That has led to dramatically increased spin rates on the ball, which then turns or dips or dives like never before.

Have you noticed how many pitchers seem to have some sort of large dirty spot on the front, center of their bill? Turns out, that might be a reservoir of glop. Of pine tar. Or maybe a combo of sunscreen and rosin. Or who knows what.

Meanwhile, so many pitchers are throwing 98, 99, 100 miles an hour now that modern day pitchers make pitchers from, say 2010, look like Neanderthals.

How many pitchers are doing this? Apparently, it’s nearly unanimous.

“There are people effectively, and not even trying to hide, essentially flipping the bird at the league with how they’re cheating in this game with concocted substances. . .’’ Shildt said. “Understandably, Major League Baseball is trying to do their best to (police) it in a manner that doesn’t create any black eye to the integrity of the game that we love.’’

In other words: Hide it. Well, too late now. 

Yes, I understand that baseball owners lost a lot of ticket revenue last year because of COVID and might lose a lot more because of a nasty upcoming labor fight.

I also understand that baseball just never learns.

You’d think Manfred would remember the steroid era, when players bulked up by injecting banned substances and then hit home run after home run. Players looked like cartoon characters, and Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds and pretty much everyone else, too, made history by cheating. What did baseball do?

Shhh. Keep quiet. People like home runs. People pay to see them. Bud Selig, commissioner at the time, hid under his desk while his PR people told him what his conscience should think based on ticket sales and TV ratings. But then fans lost faith in the game entirely, knowing it wasn’t legit. 

So here we are again. And Manfred’s leadership?

Shhh. Keep quiet. People like no hitters. People pay to see them.

But now Manfred’s PR people have apparently told him that fans don’t like seeing so little action, that the games are boring with long expanses of time 

passing with nothing happening.

A few weeks ago, the Chicago Cubs played a doubleheader against the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose ace, Clayton Kershaw, was so terrible that several of his pitches were way short, not getting anywhere near the plate. In Game 2, the Dodgers threw Trevor Bauer, another of the league’s best pitchers, and a similar thing happened.

It reminded me of the movie The Replacements, when a football coach (Gene Hackman) covers his receiver’s hands with stickem so he’ll stop dropping passes from his quarterback (Keanu Reeves).

“What’re they going to do?’’ Hackman says. “Put you in football jail?’’

Next play, touchdown. Only the receiver can’t spike the ball. It’s stuck to his hands.

So seeing these Cubs-Dodgers games, I tweeted this: “I can’t believe how many pitches in baseball don’t even get to the dirt around home plate. Pitchers are clearly putting illegal sticky stuff on the ball or their hands. Pitchers already are too good for hitters. I can’t be the only one seeing this. Where is MLB?’’

No, I wasn’t the only one. All of baseball knew. In August, the media tried to turn it into a Bauer problem, not a baseball problem, when MLB confiscated some of his pitched balls to analyze for stickem.

Bauer ripped the media and MLB on Twitter: “lol to @MLB who already has ‘sources’ talking to gossip bloggers about a supposedly confidential process a week into the season thumbs up y’all keep killin it!”

According to the New York Post, the league sent a letter to all the teams before the season saying that they were going to put a stop to this. But until Wednesday, nearly a third of the way into the season. . .nothing.

What took so long? Well, Manfred’s PR people had to tell him it was time to come out from under Selig’s desk first.

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