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Washington Nationals manager Davey Johnson broke form with baseball's oh so important unwritten rules last night, instructing umpires to inspect the glove of Rays pitcher Joel Peralta for pine tar. Rays manager Joe Maddon called Johnson's play "bogus," "bush" and a "pussy move." And Maddon is one hundred percent correct (video of Maddon discussing the incident below).
Peralta pitched for the Nationals in 2010, so his former teammates must have known that Peralta likes to load his glove with pine tar, which is illegal for pitchers, but not the least bit uncommon. Johnson, acting on inside information on Peralta, requested that umpires inspect Peralta's glove. Umps found what they called a "significant amount of pine tar" and Joel Peralta was ejected before he even threw a pitch.
The problem with what Davey Johnson did is that his info on Peralta was ill-gotten. It didn't come from natural observation of Peralta, or what his pitches were doing - it was information gained in confidence within the confines of his own Washington Nationals dugout (though Johnson was not the Nats manager when Peralta was in Washington). Whether outside observers of the game see this as appropriate or not, it is a clear violation of baseball protocol to catalogue dirt on a teammate and then burn them with it two years later.
Consider the difference between how Johnson handled Joel Peralta's pine tar, versus how former Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa handled a similar situation in game 2 of the World Series in 2006.
Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Kenny Rogers was mowing opponents down in the playoffs that year, but in the first inning of his World Series start against St. Louis, FOX camera caught Rogers with what clearly looked like pine tar rubbed on the palm of his pitching hand. But La Russa, an old school guy who was and is good friends with his opposing manager that night, Jim Leyland, didn't make a fuss.
"I was not going to be part of the BS where I was going to ask the umpire to go to the mound and undress the pitcher," La Russa said after the game that night . "I alerted (plate umpire Alfonso Marquez). I said, 'I hope it gets fixed. If it doesn't get fixed, then I'll take the next step.'"
The pine tar - or clump of dirt or "chocolate cake," as Tigers closer Todd Jones suggested it may have been - was gone the next inning and Rogers went on to shut down the Cards, and the Tigers won the game 3-1.
Davey Johnson's move was more reminiscent of the cheap, chintzy George Brett pine tar incident, in which Brett famously exploded out of his Royals dugout in 1983 after opposing manager Billy Martin used an outdated rule prohibitting pine tar too far up the handle of a bat to have a Brett home run negated.
Was Johnson within the written rules of baseball to call out the dogs on Joel Peralta's pine tarred glove? Sure. But Joe Maddon is also well within his rights as a baseball man to call Johnson a pussy.
As Maddon went on to discuss the incident further, he told reporters they should go ask Johnson's Nationals players what they thought of the move, giving more insight into why this stuff doesn't fly in baseball.
"Because I would bet - I don’t know this - but I would bet that they are not very pleased with what went on tonight," Maddon said. "You’re going to see brand new gloves throughout the major leagues starting tomorrow with pitchers on every major league ballclub. It’s kind of a common practice that people have done for years. To point one guy out because he’d pitched here a couple years ago, there was probably some common knowledge based on that. And I thought it was a real cowardly move."
Johnson, after the game, did not deny that he made the call based on inside knowledge.
"It was a rumor that he liked a little pine tar," Johnson said. "I was hesitant to do it. (Umpire Tim Tschida) was looking at me kind of grinning. He said, 'What do you want?' I walked out and said, 'Why don't you check it, just to make sure. I'm curious.' "
When asked where he'd heard the "rumor", Johnson said: "Well, he pitched here. I don't think it's a secret."
I will say this: it's interesting Johnson said he was hesitant to make the move - he was almost suggesting that his own players (who had to give him the info to begin with) urged him to do it. The one and only reason I could think of why a chicken shit move like this would be more appropriate is if Joel Peralta was an asshole of a teammate when he was in Washington, and those guys wanted to get back at him. But from what I know of Peralta, that doesn't sound like it was the case - and even still, it's a pretty cheap way to get back at a guy.
"Good for them," Peralta said afterwards. "They still lose the game."
Oh right, I almost forgot to mention that part. Tampa Bay won 5-4, and before Rays closer Fernando Rodeny took the mound, he took off his glove and showed off his clean, undoctored hands to the Nationals dugout. Then he set them down 1-2-3, which is how you get back at the other guys when you're not being a pussy.
Bison Messink:
It's perfectly legal for hitters to use on their bats. It is not legal for pitchers to use, even though they do it all the time. It's also illegal for players to use it in the field, but a lot of guys put it in the inside of their gloves to get better tack when the ball is in the pocket of their glove. Position players will also put it on the outside of their gloves and wipe it on the baseball for the pitcher when they touch the ball, because it's a lot harder to catch a position player doctoring a ball.
Bison Messink:
It's a sticky liquid substance that hitters put on the bat to get a better grip on it. When pitchers use it in small amounts, it helps them get a better grip on the ball, particularly in cold weather. When pitchers use a lot of it, and it stays liquidy, like it sounds like Peralta was doing, it is actually kind of slick, and can cause the ball to come out of their hand differently and make the ball move much more on the way to the plate than it ordinarily would.
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