Baseball and cheating...

Did anyone else find this article a little disturbing? I remember he used to pitch for the Astros awhile back...

http://http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=stickysituationwhatexact&prov=tsn&type=lgns

Baseball rules clearly state that you cannot use any foreign substance on the baseball to gain an advantage -- no pine tar, Vaseline, sandpaper, shaving cream, whatever. The rules also say that hitters cannot doctor their bats to give them an advantage.

Now that we have the disclaimers out of the way, let's get to the reality: As long as I've been around the game -- and as long as there has been baseball -- people have bent the rules to gain an advantage. In the 1920s, it was the spitball. Nowadays, it's scuffing. Hitters used to rub some kind of bone on their bats to make the wood seem harder. Now they rub their bats on bathroom sinks to get the same effect.

I pitched in Denver for two years, and at a mile above sea level, I used pine tar every time I pitched at home. My thinking was that I was more than 5,000 feet in the air and was entitled to at least do that much. I never thought one thing about it. Was it cheating? My numbers say no, given that my career ERA at Coors Field is 7.64 in 59 games. It's very dry in Denver, and that makes the baseball slippery. I needed the tar to hold onto the ball. I didn't want the ball to slip and hit a hitter. At least, that was my thinking. I never considered it cheating; I was breaking even.

Last week in Anaheim, the Nationals asked that the glove of Angels reliever Brendan Donnelly be checked before he threw a pitch, and he subsequently was ejected for having pine tar in it. Sounds like an inside job to me, and perhaps Frank Robinson was tipped off. You can draw your own conclusions. I have played with guys who scuffed or used pine tar and then we've been on different teams the next year. I have been told in so many words that if a former teammate gets checked, then that player will retaliate. To me, that means, "Hey man, you didn't mind me scuffing or using pine tar when we were teammates, so don't rat me out now." And it's left alone on almost every occasion.

I've been around pitching coaches who teach how to scuff or use pine tar. There's actually an art to scuffing, and there are two fatal errors guys make. The first: They scuff too often. To get away with scuffing, you have to know when to do it. Coaches and older players who have been around a long time know when they see a scuffed ball. So you have to pick your spots. You use it when it's a big part of the game and hope to take advantage of the small window of opportunity before the other team is tipped off. The umpire usually doesn't check the pitcher until the opposing manager asks him to.

The other mistake is making the scuff too big. Don't dig a hole in the side of the ball; just lightly brush the sandpaper across the side. If you want the ball to break left, leave the scuff mark on the right side.

Now that I've told you how to scuff, the question becomes: How much can players get away with in their own clubhouses? It's funny; pine tar is no big deal to players. Everybody uses pine tar. Catchers put in on their shinguards. Infielders put it in the pockets of their gloves so the ball will stick in there. It's almost a basic part of the game. Sandpaper and Vaseline, however, are looked at as cheating. They give pitchers too much of an advantage.

For hitters, boning bats in the bathroom is not considered cheating. Corking, however, is. Guys bone their bats in broad daylight. When a guy corks, he does it in private. If you cork and word gets out, it's bad news. You're a marked man.

Though there might be a difference between scuffing and using pine tar, technically speaking, they're both against the letter of the rulebook. So here's the thing: If you get caught, don't overreact. Have a good time with it until you get caught.

So the decision to cheat is up to you. Kind of like life, huh?

Email Todd Jones, a reliever for the Marlins, at tjones@sportingnews.com.