INSIDE THE DUGOUT of a National League team this week, a passive-aggressive internecine squabble broke out. When two veteran hitters returned to the dugout after striking out, each said, loud enough for everyone around them to hear, "Sticky stuff." The starting pitchers in the dugout, tired of hearing hitters blaming their failures on a foreign-substance boogeyman, mumbled: "Be better." The snit didn't lead to any further words or fisticuffs. It did serve as a tidy microcosm of the debate bifurcating Major League Baseball.
As MLB's crackdown on the use of foreign substances by pitchers nears its enforcement date and players adjust to the sea change it's already causing, a divide has emerged, according to dozens of conversations with personnel around the game in recent days. To suggest it's as simple as pro-tack vs. anti-tack simplifies an extraordinarily complicated situation, one that is dividing organizations, friends and people who otherwise are ideologically aligned.
The rift is more about the details of MLB's plan, which it outlined in a memo distributed to teams Tuesday. About the midseason implementation of foreign-substance vigilance after more than six years has passed since the last suspension for it. About the league declining to differentiate between the use of spin-generating adhesives like Spider Tack and substances like the sunscreen-and-rosin mixture that players by and large see as a misdemeanor -- something that violates the letter of baseball's law but not necessarily its spirit. About the health-and-safety elements of MLB's attempt to tidy up its latest cheating scandal. And about the true nature of it all and whether it's an earnest attempt to right a wrong, another effort to leverage power through policy or perhaps both.
For a topic so seemingly simple -- baseball players are applying foreign substances to the ball en masse, and the league, having known about it for years, is finally trying to put an end to it -- the complications brought about by the foreign-substance guidelines are manifold. Players who typically scoff at the notion that the league is inherently a bad-faith actor see dubious motivations all around. Other players who usually regard the league as the enemy applaud the efforts to expose and extricate what they see as a significant reason the game looks and plays so differently in 2021. Hitters who are hurt by sticky stuff back its use; pitchers who could benefit from sticky stuff bemoan it. Front-office officials who typically defend MLB wonder whether the league has overcorrected, scarred by the handling of past scandals.
It's a fascinating dynamic, people going against type and, sometimes, against their own best interests. Which is what happens when a great big cauldron of money and morality boils over. The truest nature of the game's men and women plays out in public for the world to see.
This is a reckoning -- and what's as close to universal as baseball musters these days is that almost everyone agrees the game needs an antidote to the substance issue. Six days before umpires start inspecting players and the true extent of grip enhancers gets its public airing, baseball experienced a wild Tuesday that started with the distribution of the memo; the league then tried to reconcile a star player blaming a torn elbow ligament on the new policy and grappled with the reality that this discussion -- this chaos -- is just getting started.
WHAT MAKES THIS so difficult to adjudicate is that there are rational people on each side making rational arguments, and both are compelling to those who aren't so dogmatic that they view foreign substances as a black-and-white issue. Which, to be fair, is an easy thing to do, because ultimately cheating is cheating, and if that's not black and white, what is?
The problem with this view is that it erases context and ignores what informs the opinions of those who prefer to approach the foreign-substance talk trying to understand how baseball could possibly reach a point where cheating was not just widespread throughout the sport but essentially codified by the league through its inaction. And because it was a sport-wide problem for so long, context demands to be part of the conversation.
Consider, then, the back-and-forth going on with some of the most important points being made -- and the counterpoints being offered.
Point: MLB should punish foreign-substance users immediately and not delay its policy until next year.
Context: One of the two biggest issues at the moment. MLB launched a program at the beginning of the season to identify how widespread grip enhancers were and who was using them. In Tuesday's memo obtained by ESPN, Michael Hill, MLB's senior vice president of on-field operations, wrote: "The use of foreign substances by pitchers is more prevalent than we anticipated." Rather than ignore that, baseball chose to act now.
Counterpoint: Acting now is rash. It goes against past policy on substantive changes to the sport, like performance-enhancing-drug testing, which was implemented at the beginning of the 2004 season after MLB spent the entire 2003 season studying steroid use, or changing the construction of the ball, which the league said it did before this season. If the league acknowledges the use is widespread, the effect on the sport could be dramatic, and the idea of two months played under one set of rules and four under another is illogical.
Point: A foreign substance is a foreign substance, regardless of its composition or stickiness. All will be punished equally.
Context: The other big issue. Nobody can honestly argue that sunscreen and rosin combined are the same thing as Spider Tack. MLB is essentially treating marijuana and heroin the same -- and it's doing so because when umpires start to inspect players for foreign substances, they won't be trained on the differences among substances. They'll hunt stickiness and that's that. It's not ideal. It doesn't inspire great amounts of confidence. It's extremely subjective. But in the absence of a substance produced by MLB that it allows pitchers to use -- the league has tried and failed thus far to develop one it deems worthy of on-field use -- cold turkey is the chosen route.
Counterpoint: Intent matters. Pitchers throw so hard that they're genuinely frightened of losing a pitch and hitting a batter in the head. Just because hit-by-pitches during the grip-enhancer era have risen, that doesn't make the fear any less palpable or real. It's unfair to penalize those looking out for the safety of others with a substance like sunscreen and rosin that lab tests prove enhances performance less than Spider Tack.
Point: From MLB's memo Tuesday: "[Our] research -- including numerous conversations with accomplished current and former pitchers -- demonstrates that the rosin provided for on the mound in accordance with the Playing Rules is sufficient alone to address any serious concerns about grip and control. In fact, foreign substance use appears to be contributing to an overall decline in control because it enables a style of pitching in which pitchers sacrifice control in favor of spin and velocity."
Context: It's true that spin and velocity have become paramount in the modern game. But presenting as fact that rosin "is sufficient alone," without publicly providing the evidence to back that up, is at best specious and at worst disingenuous. While it's true the league does not necessarily owe that explanation to the teams and players it governs -- on-field rules, after all, are explicitly MLB's purview -- expecting the public to buy that when reams of players contradict it calls for some transparency from the league.
Counterpoint: If rosin alone is enough, what is the league doing trying to create a substance that can be used legally or spending years trying to design a ball with a tackier cover? Isn't there something reasonable in between, like keeping a small pine tar rag or some sunscreen on the mound so players can use it in the open and umpires can monitor its application?
Point: No, because a foreign substance is a foreign substance and thus is cheating, regardless of intent.
Context: Gripping a baseball can be a very difficult thing to do. Some balls are slicker than others. Some are dryer. Some players have trouble holding one in cold weather. Some players sweat profusely during the summer. There are gradients of reasons a player might use a grip enhancer -- hell, the combinations of sunscreen and rosin can run the gamut from mildly tacky to straight-up glue -- and though enhancing performance certainly can play a role in their use, the idea that health-and-safety issues espoused by players are simply canards is awfully cynical. When multiple pitchers say in conversations with ESPN, "I don't want to kill a guy," it's either the most convincing talking point imaginable or them actually considering the consequences of where the game has gone and what they're expected -- and expect themselves -- to do.
Counterpoint: A foreign substance is a foreign substance, but if a player is genuinely using it for grip -- something that MLB would be well-served to acknowledge is real to prevent it from contradicting its attempt to develop such a thing for in-game use -- then maybe the rule needs to be tweaked to avoid sliming players with noble intentions. At some point collateral damage can become very costly.
Point: The sudden enforcement of the rules is going to have serious unintended consequences, like a spike in pitcher injuries.
Context: Tampa Bay Rays ace Tyler Glasnow has a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament and, if his rehab goes poorly, will require Tommy John surgery. According to Glasnow, this happened directly in concert with going cold turkey on sticky stuff -- he admitted to using sunscreen and rosin for better grip -- and needing to adjust the grips on his fastball and curveball to replicate the pitches. This is not an exaggeration: Hundreds of other pitchers around baseball are doing the same thing right now. They are fiddling with their stuff. They are throwing bullpen sessions with naked hands to understand what they need to do to throw major-league-quality pitches in a completely different fashion than the one they're used to. And while Glasnow admitted that because he throws 100 mph (and velocity correlates strongly with UCL injuries) he was on the likelier side to have elbow issues, the proximity of his injury to changes in how he throws the ball may not be coincidental. Another pitcher who has grown accustomed to using small amounts of sunscreen and rosin told ESPN on Tuesday: "I'm worried. I need to squeeze the [expletive] out of the ball, and that can't be a good thing." A rash of pitchers going down would be a nightmare for a sport already suffering through its most injury-ridden season in recent memory.
Counterpoint: If you don't want to get hurt, maybe you shouldn't have cheated in the first place.
Point: As a response to pretty much anything bothering players: Maybe you shouldn't have cheated in the first place.
Context: Yes, players cheated. But managers knew and didn't target opponents when it was their choice to ask for substance checks because they knew their players were using them, too. Some front offices hired chemists to brew special tacky stuff and made it clear to minor leaguers that their spin rates mattered. And everyone in the commissioner's office knew that Rules 3.01 and 6.02(b) outlawing foreign substances were not being followed and, since left-hander Will Smith was suspended in May 2015, showed no inclination to change that. This was a failure by baseball writ large.
Counterpoint: Maybe you should publicly accept responsibility for your part in this.
Point: Yeah, but the ball.
Context: This has become a favorite of players, from the tin-foil-hat conspiracies -- MLB changes the ball to influence free-agent classes -- to the real criticism that the configuration of the ball is a black box and the players who actually play with the thing deserve input so the league can settle on a composition that best suits those wielding it.
Counterpoint: Players were using grip enhancers long before they were complaining about MLB changing the ball. The ball is an easy scapegoat, sure, but the argument that players used foreign substances because of changes in the ball is rather hollow considering that pervasive complaints about it only surfaced in recent years and the use of foreign substances like sunscreen and rosin goes back well over a decade.
Point: A 10-game suspension with pay for violators is a joke and won't disincentivize players from using.
Context: If Charles Barkley is ripping your policy, that's not great.
Counterpoint: This is one issue MLB and the players actually agree on, with criticism emanating from the outside. Historically, suspensions for on-field incidents include pay because appeals are not heard by a neutral arbitrator -- the league is judge, jury and executioner -- and the system is precedent-based. Further, other levers exist in the foreign-substance policy to deepen its pain. Teams cannot replace a player suspended for grip agents, leaving them short-handed for a not-insignificant chunk of the season. Players also face increasingly harsh penalties for repeat offenses, according to the memo, though it does not specify what that might entail.
Point: The enforcement of the foreign-substance rule will bring back some much-needed balance to a game that has spiraled into a Three True Outcomes fest.
Context: It's true that the game has changed demonstrably. The league-wide batting average is its lowest in more than half a century. Strikeouts are at an all-time high. And rather than adjusting rules that could have even more severe unintended consequences, MLB can kill two birds with one stone: get rid of cheating and juice offense. Since June 3, when it was reported the league would address foreign-substance use, batting averages are up more than 10 points and spin is down across the board. MLB, in its memo, takes it a step further, impugning what pitchers are doing now and advocating a change in philosophy and approach: "Pitchers may have achieved a style of pitching that is not attainable without the use of foreign substances, but there is no evidence that pitchers must rely on the use of foreign substances in order to safely control the baseball. We have made the decision to enforce the prohibition against foreign substance use in consultation with many current and former pitchers who have had highly successful careers pitching without the use of foreign substances other than the rosin bag contemplated by the Playing Rules. In fact, the evidence suggests that eliminating the use of foreign substances will only enhance batter safety."
Counterpoint: If the game stinks, perhaps it's because the incentive structure put into place by front offices prompted the shift and players were simply doing what was necessary to survive in the new paradigm. There's a compelling argument that more than anything, their knowledge of -- and obsession with -- spin rate created the environment that encouraged players to do what they could to juice their RPMs because they were a direct line to survival.
Point: It's unfair of the league to ask players to reinvent themselves in the middle of the season.
Context: In the league's March 23 memo that outlined its plans to collect evidence via balls with substances and monitor spin-rate changes, it left open the possibility of discipline, so offenders should not be surprised. "To be clear," reads the memo, a copy of which was obtained by ESPN, "players are subject to discipline by the Commissioner's Office for violating the Official Baseball Rules regardless of whether evidence of the violation has been discovered during or following a game."
Counterpoint: Players reinvent themselves in the middle of the season all the time. It's called adjusting. Adapt or die. Even more than that, recognize that the league is finally following its own rules.
Point: From a high-ranking executive: "We are in an era of ultra-competitiveness. If you give an inch, we take a mile. So the rules have to matter. Otherwise, it's a s--- show, and the game is manipulated nonstop."
Context: Performance-enhancing drugs. Corruption in Latin America. Sign stealing. It's everywhere in baseball. And there is no counterpoint. It's undeniable.
AS EVERYBODY IN baseball prepares for this new world in which umpires play TSA agent and players decide whether they're going to keep using grip enhancers and MLB grapples with all the ways this can go sideways -- if players don't get caught, does that mean umpires are doing a poor job of looking, or if too many players get caught, does that make the sport look even more like a haven for cheaters? -- the reality is clear: This is happening, and it's going to change the game.
Players aggrieved by midseason enforcement are engaging in amusing what-ifs with teammates -- like, what if, in protest, every pitcher on a team went to the mound with a giant splotch of pine tar on his hand and got ejected one by one? Would that be the sort of statement that simultaneously embarrasses baseball, illustrates how farcical they believe the rules to be and brings them to the table for a discussion? It's cathartic, and it's amusing, and it's probably rhetorical. Probably.
And yet just like MLB noted in its March memo that discipline was a possibility, its Tuesday diktat left open the possibility of further changes: "We will closely monitor the effect of this policy on competition, and on player health, and may make future modifications to the enhanced enforcement guidance as appropriate."
Open-mindedness on such a complicated subject is critical, and even if the vast majority of players didn't participate in the crafting of the new rules, their sudden interest portends the possibility of changes that can address some of the players' greater fears.
Of course, it may be too late for that, so deep is the divide between the league and players, so fractured their relationship. Just as labor peace is often the foundation upon which great sporting accomplishments are built, labor discord poisons the well such that moments like these, in which everyone coming together to address an existential issue for the sport -- the game's integrity -- is but a pipe dream.
Some players want to believe MLB is doing this to divide them, even though the NL team's dugout illustrates that division between hitters and pitchers existed long before the league decided enforcement was a proper route. Even then, hitters and pitchers will take one another over the league anyway. But the notion that stopping cheating is actually a secondary purpose to fracturing a union that already has lost so much in recent years doesn't exactly square.
This is MLB doing what it has hinted that it will do in negotiations for a new collective-bargaining agreement after the current one expires in December: prioritizing the on-field game. Expanding baseball's footprint is impossible if its competitive integrity is in question, so cleaning up cheating is a proper step. Even the union, which has made competitive integrity through a financial lens part of its platform, wouldn't disagree with that. Both are undeniably united when it comes to making money and agree that a sport without trust is a sport that won't maximize its potential.
That can seed plenty of common ground, and it's why even those who are against the way MLB is enforcing the rules are hopeful that it goes well -- that it doesn't devolve into another situation such as the lack of punishment for Houston Astros players following their sign-stealing scandal. It has become a reference point; any time a player is suspended, someone inevitably chimes in comparing it to Astros players, who were spared even a single day of suspension in exchange for their honest testimony.
Where this goes no one knows. That's what makes it so fascinating. There is a world in which foreign substances may not vanish entirely but, like PEDs, become the exception as opposed to the rule. A world in which the mere threat of suspension, of the Scarlet S for sticky, scares players straight. A world in which they chose adapt over die -- players adapting their arsenals and front-office officials adapting their expectations of what a player can do when abiding by the rules. It takes a village, and for all the points and counterpoints, the fear and loathing, it really is quite simple. If this is going to work, everybody in the game has to be better.