Pitchers Adulterating Baseballs
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
This page suggests the number of 95+ mph fastballs more than doubled in 10 years: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-fast-fastball-isnt-en...
It could be that making it easier to throw tricky off speed pitches would take the load off of arms (and add some fun variety to the game).
if true, pitchers have probably found a way to cheat which hasn't been discovered yet (not that batters aren't cheating either)
If you’ve ever paid much attention to some of the big time high schools err “sports academies” in California where they “recruit” from the entire state and more, it’s crazy. We are probably dramatically better at finding and training kids to throw heat.
Growing up in the 60’s my next door neighbor, Eddie, an elderly man, who played semi-pro and a little pro ball. His cousin is Stanley Coveleski, a pitcher who is in the hall of fame, he still holds some World Series records, Stanley’s two brothers were pretty good as well.
Anyway, Eddie actually knew most of the greats, Babe, Ty, had a lot of pictures hanging out, playing cards, drinking, barnstorming etc. Eddie told me back in the late 60’s that ice was ruining the arms of pitchers. Eddie was a catcher and for barnstorming trips he got to catch a lot of great pitchers. Eddie said the icing of arms was what was causing pitchers to have so many problems. Eddie said that when you apply ice you stop the healing process, then the stresses and damages don’t get fully repaired, keep repeating and eventually something fails. He predicted that the problem would keep getting worse, because they were starting to have kids ice their arms in little league, creating very unstable arms at an early age.
A few years ago the guy who invented the RICE protocol admitted that he had no clinical basis for using ice. He used it because everyone else was using it, and that it was probably doing more harm than good, because the ice was removing the small amount of inflammation, signaling the body to stop the repair.
Eddies told me that for kids coming up they should keep them on a pitch count and give them more rest, and never any ice, let the body recover on its own. The body will build up the ligaments and tendons to combat the repeated stress, making recovery faster and easier over time. Because back in the day guys would throw 40 or 50 complete games a year and you can’t do that without having a “gorilla arm”, he said all great pitcher’s pitching arm!looked different than their other arm, you could see the buildup, the arms weren’t bigger just different.
Eddie was 75 and could still drop down into a catchers squat and bounce right up, then he’d say, “no ice”.
Turns out the guy was right, unless you’ve got compartment syndrome where you have a dangerous swelling problem you should let your body heal itself naturally. The little bit of swelling is your body putting blood and other fluids at the injury site to enact repairs, and using ice do remove those fluids is dumb. It’s like lowering a moderate fever when you are sick, you are compromiseing your bodies ability to fight the infection. Eddie told me that when he felt himself getting sick when he was younger he would go to a sauna and sweat it out, but now that he was older he’s take the hottest bath he could stand for as long as he could stand it. He lived into his 90’s and I never remember him being sick. I do the sauna trick when I’m sick, and it usually drastically reduces the severity and length of the cold or flu.
Doesn't take all that much effort to work up a good sweat when you're sick too.
Except when it doesn't.
There doesn't seem to be much predictive power in personal anecdotes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/health/03real.html : "In one study by Austrian researchers, for example, a group of 50 adults were split into two groups and tracked for six months. One group was instructed to use saunas regularly; the other group abstained. At the end of the study the sauna group had contracted fewer colds. “This was found particularly during the last three months of the study period, when the incidence was roughly halved compared to controls,” the scientists wrote. Other studies have found similar results. But doctors caution that saunas can be hazardous to those with heart or circulatory problems."
https://www.healthline.com/health/can-you-sweat-out-a-cold#s... : cites the same study and says it may prevent colds, but cites one study saying that hot dry air specifically (3-minute exposures thereto) doesn't help... seems not the regular kind of sauna: "Use of this type of sauna has little in common with that of a regular sauna, where one usually stays longer than 10 minutes and sweating is desired." Hmmph. I'll say that one is only partly relevant.
And the "Other studies have found similar results" link's abstract says this: "The common cold has great socio-economic impact. To date, no prophylaxis has been scientifically shown to be effective. A number of older reports implied that visits to the sauna and other thermotherapeutic measures might provide a certain degree of protection. More recent data suggest that this supposition is probably true. Nevertheless, there are a number of important questions still to be answered in this area."
Sounds like there is mild evidence in favor.
"The average severity of the common colds per cent was 1.8f0.8 in group 1 and 2.0k0.7 in group 2. The mean duration of common colds per event was 6.7 k3.9 days in group 1 and 7.5k5.6 days in group 2. Neither yields a significant difference between the two groups."
So, that one study found a minor preventative effect, but no curative effect.
Interesting that they also state
"The average frequency of sauna bathing was 26.8 55.5 (mean k SO) per six months. The frequency of common colds during this time was 33 in group 1 and 46 in group 2. This difference between the two groups is statisti- cally significant (P <0.05). The expected frequency ac- cording to previous reports (1-9) and based on the six months preceding (Table 1) the study would be 50 per six months in each group."
They expect 50 colds per group of 25 people in six months? On average each person getting a cold for a week every three months?
Looks like that's not far off, depending on the age distribution. Kids 4-8 per year, over 60 maybe 1/year. Wow.
Of the England cricket team in 2005:
"It was my job to keep the shine on the new ball for as long as possible with a bit of spit and a lot of polish. And through trial and error I finally settled on the type of spit for the task at hand. It had been common knowledge in county cricket for some time that certain sweets produced saliva which, when applied to the ball for cleaning purposes, enabled it to keep its shine for longer and therefore its swing." He found Murray Mints worked the best.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_tampering#Examples_and_al...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Australian_ball-tampering...
The ball is rarely replaced - it is very much intended for the condition of the ball to deteriorate over the course of an innings various tactics revolve around when to make bowling changes as some bowlers specialize with the 'new' ball which is shiny and hard and others have a style designed to exploit the older ball which is softer and more dull. There are certain time milestones that elapse in the match where captain can elect to replace a old worn ball with a new shiny ball.
The illegal part is ball tampering rubbing some foreign substance against the ball such as dirt or mud to weight it down or scuffing up the ball with something (A player on the Australian team was caught using a strip of sandpaper, which was a big scandal over here recently).
Isn't saliva, with or without Murray Mints, foreign enough?
I read an article a few years ago that casts some doubt on Rube Marquard's story [1], which was one of my favorites from the book. I don't think this actually changed my opinion of the book, but just added a little more color to it.
I think it's this one. 1. https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2014/03/28/whos-the-worst-pitcher-...
I do think it would make sense to give pitchers some additional grip aid like pine tar when the temperature is below a certain level. It seems like in the unwritten rules of the game, this is usually allowed if kept discrete.
The great body of unwritten rules is what makes baseball so enjoyable to follow over many years but also may be contributing to the declining interest in general. It's a slow game the rewards patience, subtlety, etc.