Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Kenny Rogers

The topic of the day seems to be Kenny Rogers and his hand. I'm tired of hearing about it and I really don't want to say much about it because it's taking away from the World Series. However, it's all over the news so I figured I should give my views on the issue. As soon as the umpires allowed Rogers to stay in the game, this should have become a non-issue. The only reason it's being talked about is because FOX and the rest of the media needs a contoversy. Unfortunately, a lot of fans are eating it up.

From what I gather, it is common practice for pitchers to use pine tar on cold days to help them get a better grip on the balls. This is against the written rules but so is the "phantom double play". As long as pitchers don't cross a certain line, they are allowed to do it. I believe the umpires and the Cardinals knew that Rogers had pine tar on his hand. Since other pitchers probably do the same thing, nobody would have said anything about it. However, once Tim McCarver started to talk about it on National TV, they had to pretend to care in order to preseve the integrity of the game. Thus, Rogers washed his hand and shut out the Cardinals on one hit over the next 7 innings. The story should have ended there but of course it won't.

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