Unwritten

by Danny Knobler

  Naturally, the Blue Jays weren’t happy. McDonald had to be held back from trying to fight A-Rod. Manager John Gibbons had words with A-Rod. And Rodriguez just stood there smiling.

  “Maybe I’m naive,” Gibbons said after the game. “But to me, it’s bush league. One thing, to everybody in this business, you always look at the Yankees and they do things right. They play hard, class operation, that’s what the Yanks are known for. That’s not Yankee baseball.”

  He’s right. The umpires may have ruled Rodriguez violated no written rule, but he certainly violated the unwritten rules.

  31. Is It Okay to Steal (and We’re Not Talking Bases)?

  SO WHAT ABOUT SIGN-STEALING?

  It’s been going on for as long as baseball has been played. Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, who played in the 1930s and ’40s, said later that his Tigers manager Del Baker would steal catchers’ signs while standing in the third-base coaching box. In the book The Glory of Their Times, Greenberg said Baker would yell “Alright, Hank, you can do it,” if the next pitch was going to be a fastball, and “Come on, Hank, you can do it,” if it was going to be a curve. With Baker as his manager in 1940, ­Greenberg drove in 150 runs.

  Years after the famous Bobby Thomson “Shot heard ’round the world” in 1951, it came out that the New York Giants had been stealing signs that season, including during that historic playoff series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

  There’s always been grumbling that the Chicago White Sox were stealing signs at Comiskey Park, or that the Toronto Blue Jays were doing it at the Rogers Centre (or the SkyDome, as it was first known).

  Then there was the controversy in 2017, the one that added a little juice to the rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. It was revealed in a story early that September in the New York Times.

  The Red Sox had come up with a sign-stealing scheme that involved using an Apple Watch in the dugout. Someone in their video room would figure out what sign sequence the Yankees catcher was using with a runner on second base, and he would relay it to a trainer in the dugout via the Apple Watch. The trainer would give it to the players, and the runner on second base would be able to read the signs and signal the hitter.

  One problem: the Yankees saw them doing it, videotaped it, and reported it to the commissioner’s office. And then somebody told the Times.

  The New York tabloids loved it.

  “Dirty Sox,” the Daily News screamed.

  “Boston Cheat Party,” said the Post. For the rest of the season, the Post put an asterisk next to Boston in the American League East standings; “*caught stealing,” it read.

  Using technology or cameras to help with stealing signs is against baseball’s written rules, and while the Red Sox weren’t seriously punished—they were only fined, because baseball decided the front-office wasn’t aware of the scheme—they were told to stop doing it.

  The Houston Astros weren’t fined during the 2018 playoffs, even though they had an employee pointing a camera into the Red Sox dugout. The Astros claimed they were trying to make sure the Red Sox weren’t cheating, perhaps by using an unauthorized iPad or other technology. The Astros employee was told to leave the area and stop filming, but MLB accepted the explanation.

  “I think it’s really important to think through what the rules are, okay?” commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters. “Sign stealing in and of itself is not a violation of our rules. It’s been a part of our game since Lassie was a puppy. Where it becomes a problem is where there is a use of technology that otherwise violates our rules to aid the sign-stealing process.”

  Technology has become more ever-present in baseball, just as in any other part of life. Teams have more cameras available for evaluation, and each team has a video room to help decide whether or not to challenge an umpire’s call. None of those are supposed to be used to help decipher signs, however.

  As Manfred said, sign-stealing itself doesn’t violate rules, written or unwritten. When the Red Sox discovered the ­Dodgers’ Manny Machado relaying signs to his batters from second base, they were upset with themselves for not dealing with it, and not with Machado for stealing the signs.

  “Oh, it’s clean,” Red Sox pitching coach Dana LeVangie told Scott Miller of Bleacher Report. “It’s baseball. If you’re not hiding your stuff with a runner on second base and you’re giving them a free view, that’s on you, the pitcher, and the catcher. It’s up to the pitcher and catcher to manage that and to us to oversee it and make sure we’re going about it the right way.”

  In fact, most players or teams would tell you the responsibility is on the team giving the signs. They need to protect themselves, and they need to be aware and change the signs if necessary.

  Teams are aware, more than ever. It was once unusual for catchers to give complicated signs to a pitcher unless there was a runner on second base (where he could obviously see the signs). Now it’s routine for catchers to use complex sequences even without a runner on second. LeVangie said Red Sox pitchers and catchers typically change their signs every pitch.

  All of that slows down the game, which is one reason many people have suggested baseball adopt an NFL-style in-helmet communication system that would allow the catcher to simply tell the pitcher what he wants the next pitch to be.

  Smart players and coaches look for anything that tips them off to what pitch is coming next, whether it’s a sign they can see or a pitcher who does something different depending on what he’s about to throw. Same thing goes for signs the third-base coach gives to the batters and baserunners, or to signals coming from the dugout. Longtime major league coach Joe Nossek was considered a master at deciphering signs.

  In the case of the “Shot heard ’round the world,” the Giants were using more than just their eyes. It didn’t come out until years later. A writer named Joshua Prager came up with it and put it first in the Wall Street Journal and later in a book called The Echoing Green.

  At the Polo Grounds, the clubhouses were in center field (in modern ballparks, they’re behind the dugouts). Giants manager Leo Durocher had coach Herman Franks sit in the Giants clubhouse with a telescope during games. Franks could clearly see the signs the catcher put down, and he had access to an electric buzzer system that connected to the Giants bullpen in deep right field. The pitchers in the bullpen could then signal the pitch to the batters.

  Teams that don’t do a good enough job of protecting their signs—or those who are just paranoid—have been complaining about it for as long as sign-stealing has been going on.

  The key is not getting caught. In the old days, that was a good way to wear one, as in getting a fastball to the ribs. Now you might end up starting a fight.

  The only problem the Red Sox had was that the Yankees saw them using the Apple Watch in the dugout. That’s against baseball rules. But there are plenty of ways around it, ways where you can get the information where it needs to get without anyone seeing that you’re doing it.

  With more and more technology available, teams are going to use it in many ways to gain an edge. They should. It’s the other team’s responsibility to protect the integrity of their own signs.

  It’s easy to become paranoid. In 2011, ESPN ran a report with American League players accusing the Blue Jays of relaying signs at Rogers Centre, via a man dressed in white in the outfield seats. Three years later, Chris Sale (then with the White Sox) accused the Tigers of using binoculars to steal signs from beyond the center-field fence at Comerica Park.

  Schemes like that violate baseball rules, but the key is catching them in time to do something about it. Giving more complex signs is one way to do it, but that can also have a side-effect of slowing the pitcher’s rhythm. Not only that but it increases the risk the pitcher misreads or forgets the sequence and crosses the catcher up, risking a wild pitch or passed ball.

  But there are other ways to do it.

  The simplest on
e is for the pitcher and catcher to set things up before an inning, and for the catcher to signal a breaking ball and have the pitcher throw a fastball up and in instead. It should only take one time, one fastball sailing in to a hitter diving over the plate to hit the down-and-away slider he’s expecting.

  That batter won’t want anyone giving him the pitches again.

  32. It’s Only Cheating If You Get Caught

  THERE’S A FAMOUS STORY LOU PINIELLA TELLS about the time George Steinbrenner called him in the dugout during a game. Piniella was managing the Yankees, and Steinbrenner was watching the game on television. The Yankees were playing in Anaheim, and the TV announcers said it looked like Angels pitcher Don Sutton was doctoring the ball. Steinbrenner told Piniella he wasn’t doing his job, and why hadn’t he gotten the umpires to stop Sutton from cheating.

  The way Piniella described it to Jerome Holtzman of the Chicago Tribune a few years later, he let Steinbrenner talk for a while before asking him who was winning the game. The Yankees were. And who was pitching for the Yankees? Tommy John.

  “Who do you think taught Sutton how to cheat?” Piniella asked. “It was Tommy John. And if I go out and bother Sutton they’ll undress our guy on the mound.”

  Sutton went seven innings that day and allowed just three hits. But John pitched just as well. The Yankees won the game in 11 innings.

  There’s a lesson there, one that helps keep cheating alive in the game. Be careful accusing an opponent if your guy might be doing the same thing.

  It’s not nearly as much of an issue in the modern game, simply because not many pitchers even know what to do with a scuffed baseball. Watch them toss a ball out of play when it comes back to them with any kind of mark. Old-time pitchers see that and can’t believe it, because they would love the chance to make that ball dance on the next pitch.

  Many of those old-time pitchers would find a way to hide sandpaper or Vaseline, or they’d have a catcher or an infielder put a convenient cut on a ball before returning it to the mound.

  Every now and then, someone got caught. Brian Moehler got caught with sandpaper in 1999. Joe Niekro got caught with an emery board and sandpaper in 1987. Kevin Gross got caught with sandpaper, also in 1987. Rick Honeycutt got caught with a thumbtack in 1980.

  And in 2014, Michael Pineda of the Yankees was suspended because he had tons of pine tar on his neck while pitching an April game in Boston.

  Four years later, baseball had another mini-controversy involving pine tar. Trevor Bauer of the Cleveland Indians took to Twitter in May 2018 and accused other pitchers of using the substance to increase spin rate. The implication was that the ­Houston Astros were cheating, and that Bauer’s UCLA teammate and rival, Gerrit Cole, was taking advantage of it. (Cole’s spin rate rose in his first season after going to the Astros in a trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates.)

  The Astros accused Bauer of jealousy. Bauer accused Major League Baseball of enforcing the rules selectively.

  And nobody ever really agreed whether pitchers using pine tar—especially in cold weather early and late in the season—was a good or bad idea.

  Many managers and hitters said they were in favor of anything that would allow a pitcher to get a better grip on the ball.

  “Absolutely,” Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper told Bleacher Report. “I’m all for it. If there’s a guy out there that needs it, I’m all for it. I don’t want to get hit in the head or the face. So whatever they need out there, I’ll let them have it.”

  Other hitters didn’t agree.

  “I consider it cheating,” New York Mets third baseman Todd Frazier said. “Anything to help somebody out, whether it’s getting grip on the ball or whatever it is. They’ll come out and say, ‘You need grip on your bat.’ Yeah, we do, but the grip part isn’t on the barrel of the bat where we hit. And when it is, you’ll get caught.”

  In the end, nothing happened. Nothing changed. The ­controversy blew over, at least until the next time someone accuses a pitcher of using pine tar to gain an advantage.

  This is one case where the unwritten rules go against the rules that are in the book. The written rules say a pitcher can’t “apply a foreign substance of any kind to the ball,” or “deface the ball in any manner.”

  The unwritten rules say you just can’t make it too obvious or too over the top. That’s what Pineda did, and that’s why Red Sox manager John Farrell felt he had no choice but to talk to the umpires about it. The umpires at that point had no choice but to throw Pineda out of the game, and MLB had no choice but to suspend him (for 10 games, as it turned out).

  Baseballs right out of the box are too slick to grip. Before every game, clubhouse attendants rub them up with a special kind of mud. But any pitcher will tell you that in cold weather even a rubbed-up ball will feel so slick in your hands that you can’t grip it.

  That’s a problem for a pitcher, but if the pitcher is throwing 100 mph and doesn’t know where it’s going, it can quickly become a problem for a hitter, too. So most hitters want the pitcher to be able to get a grip—but that opens up the possibility of using a substance that mimics the old spitball. Pitchers have been known to use a combination of rosin, sunscreen, and pine tar. Pitchers have taken the mound with what seems like too much gel in their hair, or too much pine tar on their caps.

  Pineda wasn’t the first pitcher to get caught with pine tar, and he wasn’t the first to get suspended. Julian Tavarez of the Cardinals had pine tar on his cap in 2004, and he got 10 games, too. So did Brendan Donnelly of the Angels, caught with pine tar on his glove a year later. Joel Peralta of the Rays had pine tar on his glove in 2012, and he was suspended when Nationals manager Davey Johnson asked the umpires to check him.

  How did Johnson know about Peralta’s glove? Simple. Peralta had pitched for the Nationals two years before. Rays manager Joe Maddon claimed that using that prior knowledge was “underhanded” and “a form of cheating.” Johnson shot back that ­Maddon was a “weird wuss,” and that he ought to read the rule book.

  The unwritten rule book says Peralta didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t even make the pine tar obvious, as Kenny Rogers of the Tigers did when he took the mound at Comerica Park for Game 2 of the 2006 World Series. In the first inning that night, the Fox TV cameras closed in on Rogers’ pitching hand, which appeared to be doused in pine tar.

  The umpires that night didn’t throw Rogers out of the game. They did talk to both managers, and before Rogers took the mound for the second inning, he seemed to have washed his hand.

  Rogers ended up throwing a shutout that night, so perhaps Cardinals manager Tony La Russa should have put up a bigger fuss. Or maybe he was doing just as Piniella did that day when Steinbrenner called.

  Maybe he knew the Cardinals pitchers were using pine tar, too.

  33. Can We Say “No-Hitter?”

  ENOUGH WITH THE TALK OF CHEATING OR stealing or trying to get away with something you may not have earned. It’s time to move on to something a pitcher has earned, by getting deep into a game without giving up a hit.

  What he’s earned is a seat in the dugout with plenty of space all around him, the entire time his team is batting.

  You don’t talk to a pitcher when he’s throwing a no-hitter. Is there any bigger taboo in baseball than that? We’re really talking about a pitcher who might be throwing a no-hitter, because until he gets 27 outs you don’t know whether this is the game that’s going to end up being special. Until the starting pitcher has allowed a hit, though, there’s a chance it might be.

  There’s a point in the game where it begins to matter that he hasn’t yet allowed a hit. It’s not that hard to tell when it is. Just watch the starter when the camera shows him in the dugout between innings.

  Is anyone talking to him?

  It’s funny, because you’ll hear some pitchers who have thrown no-hitters say they wanted someone to talk to. But etiqu
ette is etiquette, and nobody’s going to be the guy who gets blamed for messing up someone’s no-hit bid.

  The unwritten rule on this one is pretty simple: if a guy’s got a no-hitter going, you don’t talk to him.

  It’s not like guys talk much to the starting pitcher during any game. Every pitcher’s personality is different, but most of them are pretty locked in on the days they pitch. They don’t want much unnecessary conversation before the games, and they don’t want it between innings, either. They’re focused on the job, thinking about the next hitters coming up and what they need to do to get them out.

  But there’s always been that thing about a no-hitter, about how nobody in the dugout should even mention the words for fear of jinxing it. Some announcers and fans even think that should apply to them, although it’s pretty clear it doesn’t. The great Vin Scully never hesitated to tell his listeners that the pitcher (for the Dodgers or the opponent) hadn’t allowed a hit, and he called plenty of no-hitters. Jon Miller with the Giants and Gary Cohen with the Mets don’t believe their words can affect what happens on the field, and they’ve both called no-hitters, too.

  Meanwhile, plenty of announcers who have tied themselves in knots trying to avoid saying the words “no-hitter” have watched one no-hit bid after another get broken up. Oh well. Someone else must have jinxed it, right?

  In reality, the players not involved in the game don’t have any impact on what happens, either, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be superstitious. When F.P. Santangelo screams “same seats!” to listeners of his Washington Nationals telecasts he’s just doing the same thing guys sitting in the bullpen or the clubhouse are doing during a no-hit bid or a rally. No one moves. Everyone does the same thing they were doing all along.

  And no one has any unnecessary words for the guy trying to throw the no-hitter.