The Immortal Johnny Bench Told MLB To Get Over Themselves, Says "A Little Pine Tar Never Hurt" And Quit Being Crybabies
CNBC - Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench told CNBC that the headlines about pitchers using pine tar or other sticky substances on baseballs shouldn’t come as a surprise to fans.
“Yes, they use pine tar, of course they use pine tar, everybody has used pine tar since I was a rookie in 1967,” said the former Cincinnati Reds catcher.
“Don’t get excited, these are the things that the pitcher needs to do,” Bench said. “A little pine tar never hurt, come on. Hold on to it. Get that grip going, baby.”
Bench added that the seam of the baseball has gotten smaller since his pitching days — using a sticky substance on the ball gives the pitcher something to grip on to, he said.
Props to Johnny Bench here for telling it like it is.
Pine Tar is as much a part of the game of baseball as cussin, chew, and the seventh-inning stretch.
Same goes with Spider Tack or whatever the fuck they want to call it today.
Manfred and company can continue to vilify pitchers and the various ways they find an edge all they want but it's just proving what prisoners of the moment they are more than anything else. Like Bench said, this shit has been going on for eons. Before pine tar it was straight up vaseline. Before that who knows what Mordecai Brown and those old sailors were using.
Bottom line is they can dance around this all they want. It's always been a cat and mouse game and it will always be a cat and mouse game. MLB and its henchmen (umpires) can try their damndest to police foreign substances, but just like we saw with steroids, and now HGH and DHCMT, where there's a will there's always a way.
Instead of going after this stuff, how about no longer ignoring the giant elephant in the room that is sabermetrics and analytical nerd shit that's really actually killing the game. Long, drawn out late inning snooze fests thanks to algorithmic pitching changes, the mother fucking shift, and worst of all, the emphasis on launch angle.
That is all a blog for another day (All-Star Break) but you get the point.
Listen to The Binger Banger and let the boys play Manfred.
p.s. - if you're a baseball fan and you've never seen "Bench" this is a must-watch