Wow… three full weeks. Never thought I’d have the playoff beard for this long. I haven’t even trimmed it, save for the shaving of the neck. I can’t abide the neckbeard. I figure that the Baseball Gods respect those who respect themselves. You can’t tell by the picture, but the beard is starting to get a tad unruly. My kids are starting to cringe whenever I kiss them.
So… had enough of the Kenny-Rogers-Is-A-Stupid-Ugly-Jerkface-Oh-And-He-Cheats-Too thing? I came across a KRIASUJOAHCT roundup of sorts on USAToday’s Sports Scope blog, yet another corner of Internet I was heretofore unaware of. I still have a lot to learn about this obsessive Internet nerd thing.
Anyway, a few items from said roundup caught my eye.
**Cardinals hitting coach Hal McRae says that not only was Rogers slathering the ball with brownish goo, he was scuffing them as well (hat tip to Mr. AOL):
We collected about five or six balls that are scuffed. He had to be using his fingernails or something.
If that’s the case, then why wasn’t that brought up later in the game. There’s still more to this story than is being let on, if that is possible.
**Christine Brennan looks at the players’ good cheating vs. bad cheating mores:
The bad cheating is known for its dark, secretive, backroom ways and … it involves pills or needles. … The good cheating is more nuanced. It’s the clever stuff, the wink-and-the-nod deception … it makes you wonder; sometimes, it even makes you laugh.
She makes a good point. Some of the gray-area stuff, such as stealing signs, I have no problem with. I just think doctoring the baseball sort of goes over the line, although I am ambivalent about that, too. Gaylord Perry is an admitted doctorer of baseballs, and he rode that reputation to 314 wins and the Hall of Fame. How many of those wins were of the ill-gotten variety? Yet I kinda think it’s cool that he got away with it so often, a nod to my deep-seated authority issues.
**The New York Times takes a look at relatively recent incidents of doctoring. I readily recall Joe Niekro’s from 1987. He was ordered to empty his pockets, and out fluttered an emery board. Awesome.
I guess it all comes down to the old adage: “It ain’t cheating if you don’t get caught.” And I suppose, deep down, I can’t disagree with that. But Rogers did get caught. And nothing was done about it, which is why I can’t seem to let this go.
And there’s also the “my team does it, your team does it, so just don’t make it obvious” thing. Rogers’ cheating was as blatant as anything I’d ever witnessed. At least Niekro put his works in his pocket. Because it was so blatant, does that mean the gentlemen’s agreement is now off?
If the World Series goes to Game 6, I hope Tony La Russa gets so far up Rogers’ ass that he asks the umps to check him at the start of every inning and after every ball in the dirt. You know Fox will employ its patented Super Mega Unnecessary Zoom™ after the first one he bounces.
Anyway, the Series must go on. I can’t seem to not live in the past, so check CardNilly for a Game 3 preview.
Go Cards! Go beards!
