Postgame Spread: Kenny Rogers, Santorum Advocate

Monday, October 23, 2006

so... media hype designed to create more interest in an (i assume) ignored World Series?
Or legitimate major story.
I'm leaning towards the former, but boy howdy, the Gambler has been something else lately, and if that Frothy Mix on his hand deserves the credit, it's a pretty great story.

6 Comments:

I've already chalked it up to slander. It all goes back to the cameraman beatdown. Hell hath no fury like the sports media assaulted.

By Jeff, at 10:14 AM
I guess but I think Lehr's lean toward the attempt to generate interest in the series makes an awful lot of sense to me too. And I don't see any reason to assume all the different sports commentary is pursuing the story for the same reason.

I mean, there's a number of different ways to cut it, you know? Maybe without media hatred of Rogers they wouldn't have looked close enough to find out that he did wipe his ass with his hand during a bout of diarrhea earlier. Who knows? Or maybe they just would have let it go if they didn't hate him. But I agree that it's unlikely to be too suspicious. I thought Kaufman's take was good:

"Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, who can make a big deal out of anything, didn't make a big deal out of it. There was a fair amount of media speculation that that was because La Russa and Tigers manager Jim Leyland are good friends, but I'm not buying it. No way La Russa lets friendship get in the way of making a stink about the other team cheating if he thinks that's what they're doing."

So, to my mind, not cheating. Unless MLB figured out real fast that they wouldn't tolerate any kind of scandal and convinced La Russa not to say anything if they made sure that Rogers knew he was being watched like a hawk now and couldn't get away with anything. I could see old baseball guys not wanting to ruin a career like Rogers' over something that might also tarnish a World Series they could still win.

Still, I think it's probably not true, and as such much more hype hype hype than hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate. But that doesn't mean there can't be a little of both.

By Jesse, at 4:57 PM
USS Mariner take also very sensible:

http://ussmariner.com/2006/10/23/kenny-rogers-cheating-with-pine-tar/

By Jesse, at 8:29 PM
Thanks to slate.com's Daniel Engber for providing this gem:

"Last year, Rogers' teammate Todd Jones defended the use of pine tar in a column for the Sporting News. "Pine tar is no big deal to players,""

In other words... yeah. Rogers had pine tar on his thumb to get a better grip, and a bigger break on his curveball. And most players don't view this as cheating. So MLB didn't view it as cheating enough to warrant a debacle. So they quietly asked him to remove it. This is probably the likeliest scenario.

By Alex, at 12:46 PM
Simmons' take:

Does anyone else believe that he planted that brown stuff on his left hand to deflect attention away from the fact that he fits every possible profile of a steroids/greenies guy? I mean, let's say you just returned from a three-week safari in Africa and I told you, "Yo, there's this veteran pitcher in his early 40s with a storied track record for choking in big games, only now he's working on a 22-inning scoreless streak in October and punctuating each start by screaming after every out and stomping around like a crazy homeless guy trying to clear out a bus stop?" Wouldn't your first thought be, "What's he taking?" Instead, we're worried about some mud on his hand? Somebody make this guy pee in a cup, please.

By chas, at 3:17 PM
Lehr is exactly right. Rogers may be using whatever, but he definitely did not use the pine tar to shield himself from some other criticism.

By Jesse, at 1:21 PM