Jacob deGrom First to be Inspected by Umpires for Sticky Substances

Policing all sticky stuff in the middle of a season, without a viable alternative, is only the latest battleground. Luis Rojas, the Mets’ manager, said he wondered what would happen if a pitcher’s sunscreen accidentally dripped onto the ball. The veteran reliever Trevor May said the long-accepted — if technically illegal — combination of sunscreen and rosin was a harmless and timeless aid.

“It feels a little bit like the backside of a sticker, maybe not even that adhesive,” May said. “It’s very light and it goes away, like you touch it once, you throw a ball and it’s gone. It doesn’t do much. If anything, it’s for consistency. Basically, every time they go out there, pitchers just want to limit the number of variables. That’s why that’s been around forever, because it’s two legal substances that aren’t foreign substances on a baseball field.”

May said substances that produce extreme spin rates should clearly be banned. But he added that most pitchers were simply trying to make up for the inconsistent feel to the baseballs, which are rubbed with mud before each series.

“They put them in those cloth bags, and if the balls are caked, they dry and the dust falls to the bottom — so the farther you get to the bottom of the bag, the more dusty they are,” May said. “Sometimes you get dusty ones and you’re like, ‘Man, today’s a dusty ball day,’ because you’re in the bottom half of a bag on the last day of a series, and it’s a day game and you’re sweating. That’s just a recipe for disaster.”

Players will learn to adjust, as they always do, and the biggest impact may not be felt until the off-season. That is when the increasingly aggravated players must negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement with a league they mistrust.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/sports/baseball/jacob-degrom-umpire-inspection.html