Peralta Ejected
Peralta Ejected,Asked to leave the field Tuesday night, Tampa Bay Rays reliever Joel Peralta strode off the mound, his glove already confiscated and on its way to a secure location in the umpires' locker room. Peralta tipped his cap toward the Washington Nationals dugout, shouted something thankfully indecipherable, and angrily spit on the ground.
In the latest chapter in the long and often amusing story of cheating in baseball, Peralta had been caught red-handed, the latest character in a string of scofflaws.
Foreign Substance
With the Rays holding a 5-4 lead, Peralta entered the game to pitch the bottom of the 8th at Nationals Park. Before the reliever could throw a single pitch, Nats manager Davey Johnson got the attention of the home plate umpire, Tim Tschida, who soon summoned out Rays manager Joe Maddon.
The umpiring crew descended on the mound, Peralta was asked to hand over his glove, and he readily offered it. After a brief look inside the glove, it was confiscated and taken away. A short period of confusion followed, but Peralta was eventually asked to depart, guilty of having a foreign substance in his glove, later revealed to be a significant amount of pine tar.
The back story makes the series of events a bit more complicated. Pressed for details, Johnson said in televised postgame interview that there had been previous "chirping about pine tar." He was careful not to reveal his sources, but he left open the intriguing possibility that the team knew about the pine tar because Peralta was previously a National.
The 36-year-old journeyman had played one season with the Nationals in 2010. Peralta appeared in 39 games for the Nats and had his best season statistically -- a 2.02 ERA and 49 Ks in 49 innings. The obvious implication -- that the Nats were aware of Peralta using pine tar when he pitched for them -- adds a little controversy to the drama.
Gamesmanship
For his part, Maddon cried foul -- and much worse -- but he doesn't have much of a case to stand on. He could retaliate during the game, and Maddon predictably asked the umpire to check Nats reliever Ryan Mattheus with two outs in the top of the 9th. By the time Tschida reached the mound, Mattheus had both hat and glove in hand and a smile on his face. Nothing suspicious was found, and Mattheus continued to handle the situation perfectly by striking out BJ Upton to end the inning.
This drama unfolded in the first game of the series, so there may be more gamesmanship ahead. Otherwise, the Nats and Rays sit in opposite leagues and don't know when they'll get to face each other again to settle scores.
There could be other ramifications as well -- in the sometimes murky world of baseball's unwritten rules, others teams may also question Johnson's move. But for now, a cheater's been caught, and the Nats -- who lost the game 5-4 -- at least had something to smile about.
KW Rosenfeld is a lifelong baseball fan who visited every major league ballpark in the summer of 1991. A longtime resident of Northern Virginia, he's still thankful that baseball has returned to D.C.
source: yahoo
