tar-gate

La Russa down on 'dirt'
Fair play important to Cards manager
'If it doesn't get fixed, I'll take next step'
Oct. 24, 2006. 06:11 AM
RICHARD GRIFFIN

ST. LOUIS—Manager Tony La Russa came out with his guns blazing and his principles intact yesterday, suggesting that the Gambler, Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers, was less than honest in his "Who, me?" denial from Game 2 that there was anything but a clump of dirt on his pitching hand, before umpires made him clean up after the first inning.

"I don't believe it was dirt, it didn't look like dirt," La Russa said as part of a far-ranging discussion of Rogers' discoloured left hand Sunday night. "There's a line that I think defines the competition and you can sneak over that line, because we're all fighting for the edge. I always think, `Does it go to the point of abuse?'"

What had been shrouded in mystery and rampant speculation on Sunday became clear. La Russa slept on his silence and woke up ready to explain his philosophies on fair play and competition.

He consulted his coaches, but the heated overnight reaction, some supportive, some critical, some from media pundits, some from close friends, but most just plain mixed up as to his motives, was enough to make him spout off on his views of fair
play.

"I have always really enjoyed the competition of teams," La Russa said, weighing his words carefully. "When the game starts, there's no script and you have what, in many cases, is a pure competition. It's our team against their team and I get off on it. I detest any kind of b.s. that gets in the way of the competition."

La Russa has an old-school concept of wanting to beat you at your best, but not wanting to be cheated. Once the playing field has been levelled, may the best man win. The bottom line is that La Russa had a perfect opportunity to blindside his close friend Jim Leyland to gain an edge. He could have demanded that the umpires go out and frisk Rogers. The umpires can't go out and search a pitcher and impose the accompanying discipline without a formal request from an opponent.

It has been done before and has been effective before, but never in a World Series. If the manager requests and the umpires find a substance deemed to give the pitcher an unfair advantage, the pitcher is ejected and suspended for 10 games. For Rogers, if any pine tar or a similar sticky substance had been found, that would have been it for the series. For the Tigers, that could have been it for the year.

"So, now I bring you to (Sunday) night," La Russa said. "I have a decision to make and I decided that I was not going to be a part of any b.s. where I was going to ask the umpire to go to the mound and undress the pitcher.

"I alerted (the plate umpire). I said I hope it gets fixed. If it doesn't get fixed, then I'll take the next step. I do think if someone is abusing (the rules) — I don't care what the abuse is — before it becomes a big deal or ugly, I mean, stop it."

Cheating comes in many forms. Rogers was trying to get an edge, of that there is no doubt. If he wasn't, then he would have talked about it after the game without obfuscating. Whether it was just a light coating of stickum on the fleshy pad just below his left thumb to get a better grip in the cold of Comerica, or whether it was to get an edge and help his breaking ball break, it makes no difference. He could have been nailed by La Russa but wasn't, on principle.

In the past, pitchers have been found with pine tar or Vaseline under the bills of their caps. The best place is the crotch, because umps don't go there. Cheating pitchers have had nail files fall out of gloves. They have had a flesh-coloured Band-Aid with a thumb-tack sticking through it on their glove hand, so when they rub up the ball between pitches, they can slash it and get extra movement.

Cy Young winner Mike Scott was accused of doctoring the ball with a sharpened belt buckle. Nolan Ryan, late in his career, was accused of scuffing the ball. Gaylord Perry made it to the hall of fame as an admitted spitballer and there were guys that when they threw a pitch, a puff of white powder appeared at the moment of release. Rosin?

The question was asked of La Russa whether his entire Cards team agreed with him on taking the high road with Rogers. Was it worth the loss on Sunday and possible loss of the World Series? Maybe they thought their manager should have done more, even if it meant going against his own principles of fair play.

"When we got together (yesterday), I briefly explained (to players) where I was coming from," La Russa said. "I said, `If anybody felt I should do different, then I disappointed you.' But I went to sleep at night and I looked in the mirror. You have to live with yourself. They didn't say anything, but it's very possible there were guys that disagreed. It's not the way we want to win."

Over the years, it has been tough to warm to La Russa because of his seeming icy arrogance and the fact that he's got more credit as a genius manager than a guy like Cito Gaston, who owns twice as many World Series rings. But in this case, you have to admire the man and the way he handled the Rogers tar-gate incident.

"I was never raised with turn the other cheek," La Russa said. "It just means you get to keep getting your cheek slapped and slapped until you say enough is enough. If somebody spanks us, we spank back. That's part of competing.

"I do believe that part of the competition is that somebody will try to take advantage of it. They'll try to intimidate you. And if you allow your club to be intimidated, you're going to lose an important competitive edge."

It will be interesting to see what effect this all has on Rogers, should the series go back to Detroit for Game 6. He needs the first four shutout innings to catch Christy Mathewson at 27 in a row. Of course, FOX TV never covered the Mathewson series to get those revealing closeups and the word is he was known to scuff the ball.