- Pitchers have been deceiving batters with tricks and cheats
since baseball began. - Typical cheating tactics include
scuffing the ball and putting foreign substances on it. -
Current rules forbid tampering with the baseball at all. When
Tampa Bay Ray's relief pitcher Joel Peralta was ejected from a
game last week because there was pine tar on his mitt, he joined
a century-long list of Major League baseball pitchers who have
done whatever they needed to do to get the upper hand. From
spitballs to scuffed balls, pitchers have been cheating as long
as there have been rules. Whether Peralta's technique actually
gave him any edge, though, is up for debate. No one has ever
studied the effects of pine tar on the flight of a baseball. And
so far, nothing egregious has shown up in Peralta's pitching
stats to suggest that his cheating techniques have given him a
leg up. Still, rules are rules, and they exist for a reason.
Theoretically, putting any kind of foreign substance on a ball
could make it move erratically, c