Baseball's Rules...

The New York Yankees had a surprise today when the Boston Red Sox accused Yankee pitcher Michael Pineda of using a foreign substance - possibly pine tar his glove when pitching in their game today.

What is interesting for me is baseball’s rules regarding cheating have for years held almost a double standard.  We have most recently deplored those who used steroids - which I agree with - however there is clearly a second set of rules the baseball considers okay to cheat.

For instance while you cannot use steroids to increase hitting power, you can use a corked bat and the penalties are entirely different.  Whereas a steroids infraction will earn you a 50 game suspension, a corked bat probably only gets you a five-game suspension.  Similarly the spitball or working on the ball with pine tar or sandpaper is not nearly as vilified as steroids.

While Pineda was cleared of this incident, it will be interesting to see what happens in the future with these types of incidents now that steroids have been cleaned out of the game.