2006 World Series, Game 2

And the Tigers bite back! Yeah, I know, more then 24 hours have passed since the game, but I've been lying in bed most of the day while the pain in my hip has become nearly unbearable and there happens to be a Vicodin shortage in my house right now.

Last night's game was hardly a blowout, but of course the Tiger's win was not the big story of the night. That belonged to 41 year old pitcher Kenny Rogers.

You'd think his 23 scoreless inning playoff streak would make the news in big ways, or the way he absolutely dominated the Cardinals hitting last night. No, the big news (all over the front page on every sports site) is a mysterious blob of something on his pitching hand. John Heyman at SI.com reports that it was probably pine tar. Rogers himself said it was dirt and rosin or something. But all of that is meaningless.

In the first inning, the umpires were alerted to it. The head umpire told him to wash his hands, and it he did, and it was gone. Then (here's the kicker) Rogers proceeded to shut down the Cardinals for the rest of the night, sans pine tar or whatever it was.

I was on the phone with my friend Scott Topiol during the first innings of the game last night when the cameras showed the "brown clump" on Rogers' throwing hand. (as seen to the left.) I said to him "Oh, shit, this is all we're gonna hear about for the rest of the series," and it appears I'm right. Those ever-so-clever journalists out there, always on the cutting edge of coming up with new ways to simplify things for the moronic masses, have named this... hold on to your panties... "Dirtgate." Ah, how great is it that the Watergate hotel gave us not only an important news story and scandal, but also a suffix to use to describe anything that reeks of scandal or cover-up? I only wish it had been called the "Watershire." It sounds much more classy... Imagine "Dirtshire." Or, if there's a scandal in Worcester, it'd be "Worcestershire." Thank you, that joke cost me $400.00. Damn writer's union.

Either way, there's a simple end to this, and it's much like the steroids scandal plaguing baseball today (more on that later, I have a blog entry from myspace.com I'll repost here on that), which I suppose is now "Juicegate." Whether that was dirt, pine tar, sexual lubricant, solid rocket fuel, or weapons-grade plutonium, it doesn't matter. No, not in the ESPN.com "baseball will survive" "doesn't matter" way. It doesn't matter because the umpire was alerted, and told him to wash his hands. End of story.

There are no "checks and balances" on a baseball field. The umpire crew are a group of men who are despotic in their powers. They are Pharaohs on the field, Kim Jong Ils in blue shirts and black pants. Their word is not just law, it's divine. A strike is a strike, and no amount of arguing is going to change it. Umpires will often conference to make a decision, but once they do, there is no appealing to a higher court, no Marbury vs. Madison ruling that removes any power from the umps. What they say goes.

So, when the umpire told Kenny Rogers to wash his hands, that was it. Story over. Dirt or not, cheating or not, what happened on the field of play was decided and no amount of second or third guessing by the Fourth Estate will change any of it. It's been decided, and it's not for us to decide any longer.

End rant.

Prepare for game three tomorrow in St. Louis.