Tip sheet: Latest A-Rod allegations make the fog that much thicker

During his time in Texas, Alex Rodriguez did not hit that much better in blowout games than in close ones. Heinz Kluetmeier/SI

OK, coming off the latest talk of pitch tipping and Alex Rodriguez, we're going to talk a little bit about cheating today -- but, hey, we're not talking morality. Everyone has their own level of distaste for cheating and lying. Some think it's wrong all the time. Some think it's mostly wrong except in certain sporting situations. Some believe the old line that if you're not cheating you're not trying. I don't want to get into that today, though I do find the topic to be fascinating.

No, today's discussion of cheating is why it bothers so many of us as fans. And I think the big reason is that it simply makes everything we see suspect. There has been so much discussion about Barry Bonds' 73-home run season ... how much of that was real? Some would say that none of it was real, that it was the drugs talking. Some would say that all of it was real, that drugs play a virtually insignificant role in home runs. A few who love Bonds would say he was clean. And most, I suspect, would say that it was only partly real, and that's the calamity of it all: That season is fog.

And we don't want fog in our sports ... or anyway that's how I feel. The thing that draws so many of us to sports is the clarity of it all. Spectator sports are not like Congress or pool hustling where you know, deep down, that the real action and real money is exchanging hands behind closed doors. No, it's all supposed to be out there for us, and that's why we love it.

That's why the Alex Rodriguez pitch-tipping charge is troubling. I'm not here to say it's true or isn't true ... I have absolutely no idea, and I haven't even read Selena Roberts' book yet to know what the exact charge is. But it's out there that A-Rod, in blowout games while he was a shortstop in Texas, was tipping pitches to fellow middle infielders in some sort of bizarre quid pro quo to help everyone get some late-inning batting average happiness.

True or untrue, that's precisely the sort of thing that fogs up the game. What's real? What's make believe? As soon as I heard the charges, I immediately wanted some clarity, something I could look at and understand. And for that, I went to the numbers. What follows doesn't prove anything and more to the point it is not TO prove anything ... except the main point of all this. Which is that charges like this make everything suspicious and dubious.

I began with this: A-Rod was Texas' shortstop from 2001 to 2003. And it's worth nothing that in all three of those years a middle infielder in the American League West could have or did win the MVP award.

In 2001 Ichiro won it. But Seattle second baseman Bret Boone hit .331/.372/.578 with 37 homers, 141 RBIs, 118 runs.

In 2002 Oakland shortstop Miguel Tejada hit .308/.354/.508 with 34 homers, 131 RBIs and won the MVP. That year A-Rod hit 57 homers and finished second.

In 2003 A-Rod won the MVP. He piled up 47 homers and 118 RBIs, slugged .600 and so on. Tejada and Boone both had big years, too.

I bring this up because of this: For the scheme to be true and for it to work -- and the idea was that A-Rod would use some basic signals to let the batter on the other team know what pitch was coming and roughly which way it was coming -- I figure it would mostly have to be against players in the American League West. That just seems logical to me: Those are the players the Rangers played most, the players that A-Rod figured to be most comfortable with, the players who would offer the biggest payback.

So, I focused my look at the other middle infielders in the American League West. I'm only including the ones who were regulars ... the others would not figure to be involved in a pitch-tipping situation.

These were:

Oakland A's
Shortstop: Miguel Tejada
Second base: Frank Menechino (2001), Mark Ellis (2003)

Anaheim Angels
Shortstop: David Eckstein (some second, too)
Second base: Adam Kennedy (2002 and 2003)

Seattle Mariners
Shortstop: Carlos Guillen
Second base: Bret Boone

Now, before showing off a few numbers, I want to reiterate that, I believe, it would be almost impossible to find the answer in numbers. For one thing, Texas' pitching sucked from 2001 to 2003. Two, the Ballpark at Arlington is a bandbox. Three, a hitter who knows what pitch is coming would not hit 1.000 or anything close to that. I have absolutely no idea how much better you can expect a hitter to be if he knows the pitch and the location ... 50 points of batting average? One hundred points of slugging? More? Less? No idea. So I would not have any idea what kind of numbers we should be looking for anyway ... especially because the charge is that A-Rod tipped pitches ONLY IN BLOWOUT SITUATIONS.

Still, I think the following number is pretty striking.

American League West middle infielders facing the Texas Rangers from 2001 to 2003: Hit .309/.375/.558. They banged 44 homers and drove in 184 runs in 281 games.

And the two real middle infield stars -- Miguel Tejada and Bret Boone? Tejada hit .347/.406/.613 in 57 games against Texas. He hit 17 home runs. Boone hit .315/.386/.570 in 58 games against Texas. He hit 14 home runs.