Sean's Sports : Pitch tipping? No, baseball players aren't cheating, they're just stupid.

Pitch tipping? No, baseball players aren't cheating, they're just stupid.

I read an article this afternoon about yet another unsightly line item on Miguel Tejada's already checkered resume: pitch tipping. Apparently he'd been accused of it long before Selena Roberts brought it up as damning evidence against Alex Rodriguez. But this New York Times article attempted to make it seem like it's a very common thing in baseball, and goes so far as to point out that if true, it'd be even worse than the steroid accusations.

But to many players and people in baseball, the shadowy, illicit concept of tipping pitches or allowing batted balls to become hits is far worse than the use of performance-enhancing drugs because it casts doubt on the integrity of the game.

Now, I personally don't think pitch tipping is very common in the major leagues. And Johnny Damon probably had it exactly right in his defense of Tejada:

I think what we concluded was that the hitters were seeing him move on certain pitches. That happens, you’ll see a young player move closer to the hole on a fastball away, you’ll see him creep a little toward the hole. I think that’s what it all came down to, Miggy not being able to hide the extra steps.

Case closed. I think David Waldstein, the author of this article, has some sort of anti-baseball agenda if he's pushing so hard on this "the integrity of the game is in doubt" angle when there's really nothing there.

But, now that I've bored you to tears, I want to mention what really interests me about this article.

Mets third baseman Fernando Tatis said that he had never seen or heard of an actual case of pitch tipping or helping an opponent, but he added, “It happens.”

Okay, Fernando, if you've never seen or heard of a case of it happening, how can you so flippantly and assuredly claim that it does, in fact, happen? Don't those two things directly contradict each other?

Really, that's just a little more evidence backing up Damon's theory: baseball players are, for the most part, fucking idiots. They're not cheating, they just don't know what the hell they're doing.

Posted by Sean Schulte at 2009-08-30 12:16:07