Bobby Valentine has seen foreign substances used to aid a pitcher’s grip for five decades. A lot has changed in that half century, leading up to the present day, when Major League Baseball has begun routine inspections of pitchers to ensure sticky substances aren’t being used on the mound.
But the former Mets manager recalls an incident back in 1971, when he was a 21-year-old shortstop with the shortstop Dodgers, where he was watching teammate Bill Singer, armed with some grease in his hair, breeze through the Giants order, striking out Willie Mays and Willie McCovey before the San Francisco bench asked that Singer be checked for an illegal substance.
“Oh, my buddy is gonna be in trouble!” Valentine thought to himself at shortstop.
Instead, Hall of Fame umpire Al Barlick came out to the mound, checked Singer’s hat and hair, turned to the Giants bench to tell them Barlick was clean, but turned back to Singer after taking one step toward home plate.
“Wipe some of that stuff off in between innings, will you?” Barlick said to Singer.
Times of course have changed in 2021, with threats of a 10-game suspension now looming over a pitcher who uses any sticky substance. Inspections have been front and center, with some pitchers like Max Scherzer and Sergio Romo directly expressing their displeasure about the routine checks, while pitchers like Diego Castillo have seen their hats confiscated after a search.
Valentine wonders why such measures are necessary.
“At the end of the day, only the guilty are guilty,” Valentine told Moose and Maggie on Friday. “When you do something like this, it implies everyone is guilty.”
Valentine agrees that new substances like Spider Tack have led to an unfair advantage, where pitchers enhance the movement on their pitches rather than just aiding their grip, but he still would like to see different measures taken than multiple inspections right on the field for the world to see.
“I think it’s gotten to a level where it’s more sophisticated,” Valentine said. “With the grease and even the scuffing of the ball...there was a little that was left to chance. It might move the wrong way, it might tumble instead of spinning…but the real sticky stuff that gets you more spin, it’s a situation that I swear could have been done much better than calling timeout and searching everyone as they come off the field.”
Many players haven’t held back their criticism of the new protocols, particularly the decision to implement them in the middle of the season with insufficient notice, a decision that Tyler Glasnow believes played a part in his elbow injury. Valentine believes it was something that could have waited, but was a calculated response to try and bring back more offense, which was at historically low rates to begin the season.
“I think they knew about it last season,” Valentine said. “I don’t think it was a tipping point midseason all of a sudden. I think there was a concern with the lack of offense for sure. Just like juicing up the ball without telling anyone, in doing something like this they thought ‘well, we’ll get through another year until we get to the CBA and we’ll deal with it when we get to the CBA.’ I don’t think that it was such a big issue that it couldn’t have been controlled in house.”
Not much about the sticky substance epidemic has been in house, or kept behind closed doors. It’s all out in the spotlight for the baseball world to see, and a former manager with decades of experience in Major League Baseball says that’s status quo for the league.
“Why does baseball decide that if they have dirty laundry, they have to hang it out in public?” Valentine said. “What the heck is that? You mean to tell me there’s never been a football player who if 6-foot-9, 350 pounds running a 4.4, maybe doing something he shouldn’t be doing? But do we get to hear about it? Is it a major situation? No, they handle it behind closed doors. I just for the life of me can’t understand why baseball decides they have to tell the public we’re just bad people, and cheating all the time. It’s beyond me.”
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