[QUOTE=Happy Lendervedder]
I blame frickin FOX. Those sensationalist pricks. Here’s how I imagine it: Their cameras pick some odd coloring up on Kenny’s hand, they know he’s been accused of shadiness before, so-- sensing the potential for drama-- someone from the booth calls someone official on the field and says “We heard some St. Louis players were complaining about odd ball movement, so we checked with our zoom and we saw something on Kenny’s hand.”
The official calls the St. Louis clubhouse/dugout and says “We heard some of your players were mentioning funny ball movement from Rogers and someone’s noticed something discolored on Kenny’s hand; do you want to check it out?”
TLR goes out to an ump and says “I’m hearing that there’s something funny going on with Kenny’s pitches; you wanna check to make sure he’s not doing anything squirrelly?”
A Tiger player overhears some discussion, and lets Leyland and/or Rogers know that he’s heard “The St. Louis bench is talking about something to do with Kenny’s pitches and pitching hand. You better make sure that sucker’s CLEAN ENOUGH TO EAT OFF OF because they might make some kind of check.”
Not wanting to risk anything at this point in the post season, Leyland tells Kenny to go wash his hands. He does. End of story. TLR lets it drop, the Cards let it drop, and the game is finished sans shitstain.
Except. FOX needs to create a little excitement around the lowest-rated WS in history, so they keep on harping on it and showing Kenny’s shitstain over and over and over and over and over and over, until it’s all anyone can talk about. Forget the incredible game Kenny pitched, or Monroe’s second homer in 2 nights, or the jam Jones pitched himself into and out of, or the fact the Cards took a game in Detroit despite very few thinking they would.
Nope, now everyone’s buzzing about this Series, and FOX hopes people will tune in Tuesday to see what happens next.
Pricks.
Maybe none of them did. With how I imagined it going down, it was one big cluster-fudge of a telephone line: little seeds of misinformation and assumptions spreading like nasty weeds in a matter of minutes.
I really don’t see how a wily veteran like Rogers would use pine tar in such an obvious and sloppy way during one of the most-watched appearances of his career. I mean, this wasn’t an untelevised game at Kansas City in July, for pete’s sake. He may be a complete asshole, but he’s not brain dead.
[/QUOTE]
The Cardinal hitters may have noticed something during their at-bats (since no one seems to be clear on that now,) but La Russa for sure learned about it from TV through reserve outfielder John Rodriguez (the guy in the blue hooded sweatshirt who came to talk to TLR and Duncan.) He was in the clubhouse watching the broadcast, apparently, and came out to tell TLR what was happening.
Why TLR waited to go out, I don’t know. Why he’s now claiming no one said anything about the ball moving strangely, I don’t know. But something odd happened last night, and it hasn’t stopped today.