Yours truly knoweth not how sophisticated TV cameras and the like are in the Dominican Republic. But in America, particularly at sporting contests like Major League Baseball games, the typical vast array of cameras work REALLY well -- and they don't miss much. Throw in zoom lenses and high def -- and one can count the stitches on a baseball, or nose hairs on an umpire from hundreds of feet away.
Enter Michael Francisco Pineda Paulino, a 25 year old pitcher for the NY Yankees, who hails from the Dominican Republic. As they say -- this boy is in a heap of trouble right about now with MLB, and it has to do with pine tar.
Pitching against the Boston Red Sox back on April 10, the cameras zoomed in and easily picked up a glob of pine tar on -- of all things -- his pitching hand. It was obvious to anybody watching the game on TV yet, for some reason, the folks in the Bosox dugout (and the supposed eagle-eye umpiring crew) were oblivious to it. By the time it was brought to their attention in a later inning, likely by some Boston video tech that finally emerged from his coma, the pine tar had magically disappeared from Pineda's hand. At that point, there was nothing to be done about it. There's no such thing as retroactive calls in sports. But make no mistake -- it was there. They just missed it at the time.
Given all the subsequent publicity on TV and the Net, and further given MLB looks upon doctoring baseballs in much the same manner as corked bats and those pesky steroids -- one would think Pineda would consider himself fortunate to have gotten away with it -- once. Surely, he wouldn't do such a dumb thing again.
But he did, just earlier tonight, against the same Bosox, in a nationally televised game. And the same zoom/high def brought it to the viewers in millions of living pixels. Only this time, the folks in the Red Sox dugout happened to notice it. It was pretty hard not to -- given Pineda had a highly visible glob of pine tar on the side of his neck -- of all places.
That also leaves one to wonder -- even if Pineda is that dumb to think he could get away with it again -- how could Yankee manager Joe Girardi and his coaching staff NOT know what was going on? Good grief, the pitching coach's job is to thoroughly check out his pitcher every time he returns to the dugout to make sure he's OK. And somehow he missed his guy getting the Brylcreem treatment of yesteryear, as in "a little dab will do ya", on the side of his neck before returning to the mound? That's preposterous. Either they knew all along, or the whole lot of them should be fired for gross incompetence. I would bet on the former, but it still doesn't make any sense. A nationally televised game between two historic rivals, and a pitcher that had been exposed only a couple weeks ago trying the same illegal stunt again? Very strange.
But this time Pineda got busted. Bosox manager John Ferrell approached the home plate ump and asked him to check out Pineda for illegal substances which might be used to doctor a baseball. The ump did, the goop was obvious, and Pineda was promptly ejected from the game. Joe Girardi offered little argument and meekly returned to the Yankee dugout. Imagine that.
Major League Baseball rule 8:02 pretty well spells it out. The pitcher shall not apply a foreign substance of any kind to the baseball. A pitcher found breaking this rule shall be immediately suspended. The length of such suspension to be determined by MLB.
If we can safely assume Pineda didn't use pine tar on his hand and/or neck as a cologne or aphrodisiac while he's on the mound, but rather it was there for other nefarious purposes, than the original conclusion of yours truly would seem to be quite valid.
When the powers that be in baseball get done with their review of Pineda's not-so-good antics of late, and consider how long his mandatory suspension should be -- yep -- that boy just might be in a heap of trouble.
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