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 Everybody's doing it Devil Rays, Tigers agree: Scuffing is part of game
Posted: Sunday May 02, 1999 06:14 PM
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- Larry Rothschild didn't feel like a good detective who solved a horrible crime. The Tampa Bay manager carefully plotted strategy to prove Detroit pitcher Brian Moehler was defacing the ball Saturday night, however he insisted he didn't get any pleasure out of nabbing the suspect. Moehler was ejected during the seventh inning of the Tigers' 4-3 loss to the Devil Rays for having a small piece of sandpaper attached his left thumb. "I believe in the rule book -- and I may be wrong -- that's a 10-day suspension," said umpire Larry Barnett, who described Moehler's reaction as that of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "It's not my decision." Section 3.02 of the Official Baseball Rules calls for a 10-day suspension. In 1987, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Kevin Gross was suspended for 10 days by NL president A. Bartlett Giamatti after Gross was caught with sandpaper in his glove. That same year, AL president Bobby Brown suspended Minnesota pitcher Joe Niekro for 10 days for carrying an emery board and sandpaper in his back pocket. A decision by AL president Gene Budig is expected Monday. Moehler denied scuffing the ball or having sandpaper on his thumb when Rothschild asked Barnett to check the pitcher's glove and hands after Moehler allowed consecutive singles with one out in the seventh. He said he didn't protest the ejection because it's not his nature to argue and that Barnett was just doing his job. "There was nothing there. It was dirt," Moehler said. "I don't know if other guys do it or not, but I was rubbing the ball like I always do. These three fingers get the dirtiest, but the ump said he saw something." The Devil Rays became suspicious after Moehler, who allowed three runs in the first two innings, suddenly began getting sharper than usual movement on some of his pitches. He asked his bat boys to start collecting balls tossed out of play in the fourth inning. He took his case to Barnett at the beginning of the seventh, but waited until the Devil Rays had the go-ahead run in scoring position before asking the umpire to check Moehler. "My third time up that ball cut inside a good foot," said outfielder Dave Martinez, who drove in Tampa Bay's first run with a first-inning triple. "I went from seeing the ball and thinking I was going to smoke it up the middle to almost getting jammed and flying out to left. All of a sudden the ball's coming in on you like that, darting in on you, and you're thinking: `If he doesn't throw a cutter, what's he throwing?'" Rothschild said he only went to Barnett after he was fairly certain the umpire would find something. "I didn't check for gamesmanship. I checked because there was something going on. I don't play that game," the manager said. 'I did it because I knew that something was going on. I wouldn't do it to distract somebody or anything else." Like Moehler, Detroit manager Larry Parrish didn't protest the ejection. But Parrish did take issue with Rothschild asking the umpire to look at the pitcher's glove and hands. "There's not a pitching staff in baseball that doesn't have a guy who defaces the ball ... If the umpires want to check things like that, I think half to three-quarters of the league would be suspended, including Tampa Bay Devil Rays." Asked for names, Parrish tabbed Devil Rays starter Bobby Witt and closer Roberto Hernandez as culprits. Witt was the winning pitcher, while Hernandez earned his 200th career save Saturday night. "I am not a cheater," Hernandez said. "I'm sorry, I'm not about that. If he has to say that I cheat he's just putting a little more doubt in his hitters' minds." Rothschild conceded that catching Moehler is not likely to change the way pitchers go about their business. "You can know about it. But a lot of times there's nothing you can do about it ... There are guys who are pretty good at it, and you're not going to be able to find anything. That goes on all the time." Rothschild added, however, it would have been unfair to his players to have known Moehler was doing something and not gone to Barnett. "I don't derive any satisfaction out of getting somebody thrown out of the game," Rothschild said. "But I'm going to stand up for what these players need, and that's a level playing field."
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