• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Click here to download the  free ebook of Alberto Juantorena’s  detailed training workouts leading up to the 1976 Montreal Olympics

SpeedEndurance.com

Success in Track & Field ... and Life

  • Home
    • About
    • Contact
  • Track & Field
    • 400 meters
    • 800m & Mile
    • 1/2 & Full Marathons
    • Long & Triple Jump
    • Hurdles
  • Training
    • Weight Training
    • Abs & Core
    • Injury Prevention
    • Shoes & Spikes
    • Masters
  • Coaching
    • Freelap Friday Five
    • Interviews
    • Sports Nutrition
    • Sport Psychology
  • Archives
  • Shop
    • My account
    • Checkout
    • Basket

SHIN SPLINTS 2014 – Pine Tar Capers

You are here: Home / Doug Logan / SHIN SPLINTS 2014 – Pine Tar Capers
4
SHARES
FacebookTwitter

April 17, 2014 by Jimson Lee Leave a Comment

This series is guest blogged by Doug Logan.  

Doug Logan is an Adjunct Professor of Sports Management, at New York University.

He was the CEO for USATF from 2008 until September 2010.

He was also the CEO, President and Commissioner for Major League Soccer from 1995 to 1999.  To read more about his background and involvement in Track, Soccer, Rugby and the Music industry, read my Freelap Friday Five Interview

This is his 46th article. Click here for his entire series.

baseballs

SHIN SPLINTS 2014

Pine Tar Capers

People cheat all the time.

It is almost a sacramental rite to cheat when one is pouring a cup of soda-fountain soft drink. Pour it to the top…watch the foam go down…take a sip…fill it to the top again. Grocery shoppers feel no compunction about eating a grape or two at the produce bins, or a couple of kalamatas when breezing by the olive vats. Who among us has not had a couple of bites of our salad, waiting on line to be weighed out by the clerk?

I am writing this essay on April 15th, National Day of Cheating. Every year those who calculate and file their own return create works of fiction worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. How many miles did the family Honda travel for business purposes? How about that den we have that is a “dedicated” home office? Those dozen or so receipts we have from expensive restaurants must have been for business dinners and certainly not family outings. Hemmingway would have been impressed.

Your own friends and family would not recognize the personality who is described in your LinkedIn bio. Your neighbors, after reading your resume, would go “Who’s he?” People duck into the front of a line at a movie theater all the time. I know some who hang a handicapped parking tag on their car who could run a marathon. A lot of ladies who use a wheelchair at the airport would trample you at a sale at Macy’s.

See also  Pete and Monica [SHIN SPLINTS 2015]

It’s no different in baseball.

I have always been amused by a baseball tradition known as the “vicinity play”. It goes something like this. When a potential double-play ball is hit, the runner at second is deemed out if the fielder is “in the vicinity” of second base when he makes his pivot and throws to first. Yet, if a base-runner misses touching a base as he rounds the infield, he has no such dispensation. Why one circumstance merits the equivalence of a Plenary Indulgence and the other does not is a mystery to me.

Stealing signals, whether from a catcher, or a base-coach, or a manager in the dugout, has always been a respected art-form. The former is forbidden by the rules, yet, almost every team at one time or another has had a spotter in the stands, armed with binoculars and a radio. A runner on second base is not allowed to telegraph the catcher’s signs to the batter, but they are allowed to do so regularly if their communication is discreet.

Cheating in baseball has its own rules.

This brings us to the Pine Tar Incident. On July 24, 1983, in a game between the Royals and the Yankees, George Brett of the Royals hit a two run home run to give his team the lead. Billy Martin, the lunatic Yankee manager, requested that the umpires inspect his bat. The umpires ruled that the amount of pine tar on Brett’s bat exceeded the rules, nullified the home run and called him out. Brett had a complete meltdown and charged the umpires. The Yankees went on to win that game, but the ump’s call was overruled by the league, and the game restarted at a later date. The Royals went on to win the restarted game.

See also  Shin Splints 2014 - C Rod

[Tweet “Cheating in baseball has its own rules.”]

Pine tar is one of those odious substances connected with baseball [others include spit tobacco juice and sunflower seeds]. And, it played a role in a game last week between those same Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Last Thursday Yankee pitcher, Michael Pineda, earned his first MLB win since July 2011. He pitched six innings allowing only four hits while striking out seven as the Yankees won 4-1.

However, every player on the field and every viewer on TV could see that Pineda had a palm-full of probable pine tar. He was obviously “doctoring” the ball, which violated the rules. In today’s era of powerful telephoto lenses, very little gets by an observant TV producer. After the game the umpires said they never got a complaint from the Red Sox so there was nothing they could do.

So, the Yankee pitcher was cheating and the Red Sox did not care. Why? Here’s the answer. It was a cold night in Yankee Stadium. When the weather gets cold, the ball gets slick and it is hard for the pitcher to control it. Batters are scared to death on those kinds of night; scared of getting hit in the head by an errant pitch. So, they are complicit in the cheating, hoping that a pitcher who uses a little of the mastic will be able to throw the ball where he is aiming.

This brings me to a great George Steinbrenner story.

Years ago, in a similar Yankees versus Red Sox game, it became apparent that the Boston pitcher was using pine tar on the ball. It was so blatant that it became a topic of conversation on the NESN [New England Sports Network] broadcast of the game. George Steinbrenner, Yankees owner and ever the meddler, called down to the dugout on the private phone line he had installed to torture his field manager.

See also  SHIN SPLINTS REDUX - Barry and the Wrecking Ball

Buck Showalter, the Yankee manager at the time [and currently the skipper of the Baltimore Orioles], answered the phone and immediately Steinbrenner started screaming. “You have to be the dumbest man in North America! Everybody in the stadium knows the Boston pitcher is cheating. What are you going to do about it?”

Showalter calmly responded, “Boss, have you looked at the score?”

Steinbrenner said. “Yeah, we’re winning by three runs.”

Showalter paused and then asked, “Who would you rather have, their cheater or our cheater?”

Click! Steinbrenner hung up.

 

Category iconDoug Logan,  Life & Culture Tag iconbaseball

About Jimson Lee

I am a Masters Athlete and Coach currently based in London UK. My other projects include the Bud Winter Foundation, writer for the IAAF New Studies in Athletics Journal (NSA) and a member of the Track & Field Writers of America.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Recommended

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xbs-aWxyLk

Shop Our Store

  • Bud Winter (9)
  • Championship Productions (6)
  • Clyde Hart (2)
  • Derek Hansen (1)
  • Electrical Muscle Stimulation (2)
  • Jim Hiserman (6)
  • Jimson Lee (4)
  • Uncategorised (0)

Articles by Category

Products

  • Jim Hiserman - Developing 800m Runners: Identifying, Categorizing and Developing 400m-800m Type Athletes $42.99 $39.99
  • Private Coaching - Monthly Plan $600.00 $525.00
  • Jim Hiserman-Developing-Distance-Runnersv2 Jim Hiserman - Developing Distance Runners Volume 2: A Systematic Approach to Developing Individual Success within a Dynamic Team Culture $34.95 $29.95
  • Feed-the-Cats-Clinic-3-Pack-701 'Feed the Cats' Clinic 3-Pack $64.99
  • Tony Holler's Feed the Cats": A Complete Sprint Training Program Tony Holler's "Feed the Cats" Complete Sprint Training Program $49.99
  • Bud Winter and Speed City presents Arthur Lydiard 509x716 Bud Winter & Arthur Lydiard MP3 [Download only] $9.99

RECENT POSTS

  • Oregon22 Coaches Club now Online
  • IFAC 2022: The Return of In-Person Conferences (with Virtual option)
  • Here is our 400m Discussion Recording… over 2 Hours Long
  • The Best Free Coaching Book – post Beijing 2022 Olympics
  • The Ultimate 400m Track Webinar for Coaches & Athletes
  • NACAC Athletics Coaching Science Series 2022
  • Top Six 400m Predictor Workouts (Number 4 is my Favourite)
  • Best 6 Podcasts for 2021 (and Beyond)
  • Why Karsten Warholm’s 45.94 400mH WR is my Highlight of 2021
  • Sprinting: 10 Research Articles for Effective Sprint Training [Part 23]

Copyright © 2023. SpeedEndurance.com is owned and operated by Aryta Ltd. Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}