Hello, everybody. Welcome back to my channel. Today I have a story for you. Today's story is for the people that love sports and for the people that love drama. I bet you didn't know that those two could come together, but they most certainly can't. I am going to be talking to you guys today about the 2021 Sticky Stuff scandal. That's right, cheating in professional sports. It's fun because we're not a part of it. The players are catty, the girlies are fighting, and there's cheating all mixed in
. So grab a snack, grab a drink and enjoy the story. If you like today's video, feel free to let me know in the comments or by liking the video only if you liked it though, and feel free to subscribe if you don't want to miss any more baseball content for me. Hey guys. Post-production silly here, I'm telling you, you're going to see me at least once. A video I, I don't know what to say. I forgot to mention that all of this is a legend. It's all a legend. Based off of articles that I've read, int
erviews that I've watched and research that I've done, but nonetheless, all a legend. Okay, that's all. So without further ado, let's jump right in the wind. Got him. To find out the launching. Oh. Got him twice. Yeah. Two times. The third time it didn't go out. So you might be wondering to yourself, silly. What is sticky stuff? That sounds incredibly inappropriate? Well, it is, but because it's, used for cheating, not for any other reason. When you have more stickiness or more grip on a basebal
l, it allows you to put more spin on that ball. And when the ball spins more, it moves more. And when it moves more, it is harder to hit. Therefore, pitchers like using sticky stuff because it makes the baseball harder to hit. There are a number of ways to put more spin on a baseball, including adding some roughness onto a baseball or by having stickiness on your fingers or on the baseball. You can have better grip on something when there is more of a texture on it. Think of like a tech deck or
a skateboard. Same principle for a baseball sticky stuff in general can be made with a number of different things that are very easily accessible to pitchers, including sunscreen, sweat, rosin. Remember that combo, pine tar, etc. all of these things are in or near a dugout or on a pitching mound. There is a rosin bag on the mound for each Major League Baseball game, and that's just sitting on the mound. And if you just mix it with a little bit of sweat, it makes it makes your fingers sticky. So
there are a number of different ways that baseballs have been doctored in the past. You might be familiar with something called a spitball. That's a real thing. A spit ball is when you spit on your fingers or on your hand and you throw a ball. That's literally what a spit ball is. This spit ball was banned in the 1920s because a pitcher literally threw one. It hit the batter in the head and it got them. So they said, you know, we probably shouldn't allow spit balls in the league, so they banned
them. If you use a little bit of sandpaper and rub it on a baseball, that adds a little bit of grip to a baseball, pitchers have put little pieces of sandpaper on their belts, on their gloves, on different parts of their body inside their glove, in order to put a little bit of grip on the baseball. In August of 1987, against the California Angels, Joe Niekro was approached by umpires that were under the impression he may be doctoring the baseball. He was promptly searched and eventually asked to
turn his pockets inside out. Niekro did so only to try and discreetly throw an emery board and sandpaper away from umpires. He only checked in about 2.5ft away, so it didn't go as planned. He was immediately ejected and suspended for ten games for doctoring a baseball. Now, pine tar is an interesting one because batters can use pine tar. It gives you more grip on a bat so you effectively can hit the ball harder, but pitchers cannot use it. So imagine this your homie just hit a grand slam. Hell
yeah dude, you're the man. Good for you. High five. Now I have pine tar on my hands, so it is that simple. So with all of this in mind, with all of the different substances that you can think of to add grip to a ball, we will now be referring to them universally as sticky stuff. MLB does not want pitchers to use sticky stuff for a number of reasons. The main one being these dudes absolutely dominate when they can use sticky stuff, and it makes for less hits in the league. Think about it. Stay wi
th me here. More hits means more runs. More runs means more action, and more action leads to more excitement, which leads to more people watching baseball. So the league wants more hits. Sticky stuff makes it harder for batters to hit balls because there's more spin, which means there's more movement, which means there's less hits. Think about it like this if producers don't give reality TV stars something to then moan about, what's the drama? What's the excitement? It's the same thing in baseba
ll and in any other sport. If there's no scoring, why would anybody want to watch? So Major League Baseball doesn't like sticky stuff? Oh, they're rubbing up the baseballs in the Yankee fan. Mesmerizing. Do you ever sit there and do that again? Yeah. I was a bat boy for two years for the Asheville Tours, the Colorado Rockies Low-A affiliate. So yeah, I've rubbed up quite a few balls in my life. Now, the current process for getting a baseball ready for a game is as follows. Imagine this a basebal
l comes straight out of the factory. It's a little smooth. They're normally made out of synthetic composite leather, so as there is a little bit of slip to it, balls are muddied with something called baseball rubbing mud. Yeah, they may not. Balls. The baseball mud is made by a guy named Jim Benton, who's literally known around the league as the mud Guy. He jars that special mud and then sells it to Major League Baseball. And that's the only mug that they use. Jim is apparently the only dude tha
t knows where the special mud lies, so he is effectively created a monopoly in the baseball money market. And I think that that is a crime. Last time I checked, monopolies are not legal. Someone is literally assigned to rub the baseballs with this special mud in order to combat some of that inherent slip. Now, after some time, if this mud and ball has not been used, or if it's warm out or if it's dry, the mud can dry a bit and think about it. When you have mud that turns into dirt, it becomes a
little slippery again. Now this obviously defeats the purpose of this combating the slip, but it's the best that Major League Baseball can do. They have not come up any sort of way of combating this slipperiness right out of the factory. This is the best that they can do. Put some mud on it and that's it. Now that you have a little bit of a background on why Major League Baseball doesn't like it and what sticky stuff even is, let's get into the scandal. Let's get into the meat and potatoes of th
is story. Another home run, 106.6 miles an hour and oh yeah, he Josh Donaldson just kicked dirt as he came across. So before I jump into the story, I obviously have to introduce you to the main characters in this story. We have some colorful ones here, so make sure you pay attention. Every detail is very important. Let's start with this beautiful man up here, Josh Donaldson. Josh Donaldson, at the time of this story was playing on the Minnesota Twins. He is a Sagittarius from Florida. Yes. It's
important if you don't think that's important. What planet are you from? Josh Donaldson was drafted in 2007, in the first round by the Chicago Cubs. Josh Donaldson is now retired, but he did have a 30 year MLB career and played for a number of teams, including the Athletics, the Blue Jays, the Cleveland Indians, now the Guardians, the Atlanta Braves. The twins, like I mentioned, the Yankees and the Milwaukee Brewers. Josh Donaldson is a three time all star, one time MVP winner in 2015. It should
have been Mike trout, but that's a different story for a different time and a two time Silver Slugger. So he was pretty good. He was he was a pretty good ballplayer. Josh Donaldson is known for sitting by himself before each game to meditate and think about all of the reasons why he hates the pitcher that he's going up against that day. He's kind of a madman. He would do that to try and find some power and some energy before each game. So take that how you will. Next up on the list, we have thi
s gentleman right here, Gerrit Cole. Gerrit Cole is a Virgo from California, and he was drafted first overall in 2011 by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Now Gerrit Cole is a very good pitcher. He's currently in his 12th year of Major League Baseball and has played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Houston Astros and is now on the New York Yankees. He is a six time All-Star and finally won his first Cy Young Award this past year. He's also a two time E.R.A. Champ, so another very good ballplayer. Garrett C
ole, is known for his love of bananas, obviously, and he enjoys wagging his finger after massive strikeouts. The next character in our story is this man right here, Trevor Bauer. Trevor Bauer is a Capricorn, also from California. Believe it or not, these two went to UCLA together and were teammates. Spoiler alert they didn't really get along very well. Gerrit Cole was the ace of the rotation at UCLA, and Trevor Bauer was starting pitcher two in the rotation. And they didn't really get along and
still to this day do not really get along. Trevor Bauer was drafted third overall in 2011, two picks after Gerrit Cole by the Arizona Diamondbacks. He had an 11 year MLB career and played for a number of teams, including the Diamondbacks, the Reds, the Indians, now the Guardians, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, which is who he played with during this story. Trevor Bauer commonly enjoys throwing a baseball as far as he possibly can during warmups or in the middle of a game. It doesn't really matter.
Next, on our main character list, we have this man right here Bubba Harkins, Bubba Harkins worked for the Los Angeles Angels for over 35 years. I apologize, I don't know his sign and I don't know where he's from. I tried to look it up and gave up after a couple of minutes. So all you get is that he worked for the angels for a long period of time. So sorry, Lou Tuber, please forgive me. And last on our list, we have this beautiful man right here, Max Scherzer. Max Scherzer is a Leo from Saint Lo
uis, Missouri, and was drafted 11th overall by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2006. He's currently in year 17 of his Major League Baseball career. He has played for a number of teams as well, including the Diamondbacks, the nationals, the Tigers, the Dodgers, the New York Mets, and is now currently on the Texas Rangers. During the time of this story, Max Scherzer was on the nationals. His nickname is mad Max, so that should tell you everything you need to know about him. And he also has two beautif
ul eyeballs. Imagine looking at that one. You're on the mound. Max Scherzer is a three time Cy Young winner, an eight time All-Star and a two time World Series champ. So Max Scherzer is pretty, pretty good at baseball. Now that you have all of the details of all of the characters involved in this story, it is time to jump into the story itself. Way to go, blaze! Now I know what you're thinking. So why would anybody want to use sticky stuff? I know that nobody would want to cheat, tarnish their n
ame, miss out on games due to being suspended. I know nobody would want to jeopardize their career. Well, you're wrong, babes, you're wrong. I it happens a lot. There have been many periods when sticky stuff has been extremely prevalent in the league, and many, many players have used it. Many players have partaken in sticky stuff activities, including Joel Peralta, Tyler Glasnow, Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole, etc.. Now, one thing about my man Trevor Bauer here is that he has been a clear advocate f
or calling this abuse out very early on. He talks about how guys put it on their gloves, hats, etc. and the league and managers don't really do anything about it. Trevor Bauer had an interview with Bryant Gumbel in February of 2020, and he mentioned that managers won't call pitchers out during games because all their guys are doing it to. So why would they say anything? Yes, that makes sense. It's just a big cluster, basically. And the only people getting the shit end of the stick are the hitter
s. Trevor Bauer claims that probably around 70% of pitchers at this point are using sticky stuff. And in this interview, he also mentions the 2017 Houston Astros cheating scandal. Let me know if you guys want a video on that. That could be a fun one. Now, again, like I mentioned earlier, Trevor Bauer has been calling out sticky stuff use for a very long time. At this point, he is synonymous with the issue of sticky stuff, but mainly because he was so open to talking about it, and he also pushed
the league very hard to do something about it because again, he said the hitters are the ones that are suffering here, not the pitchers. And when hitters suffer, baseball games are not fun. Now we reach our point in the story when there is a scapegoat. In March of 2020, this man here, Bubba Harkins, was fired as part of the league's crackdown on sticky stuff. Like I mentioned earlier, he was a former employee of the angels, and he did not deny any of the allegations that he had against him. He s
aid, look, man, you're not wrong. I used to make sticky stuff for plenty of pitchers around the league. He admitted to creating sticky stuff for a number of current athletes, including Max Scherzer, including Gerrit Cole, including Adam Wainwright, Justin Verlander, who are extremely talented pitchers that we're not going to go into today. He was pretty obviously a scapegoat for a league wide issue. He claims you're firing me over stuff that is all over your clubhouse right now. But nonetheless,
he was the scapegoat in the beginning of Major League Baseball. Cracking down on sticky stuff. They decided, look, we got to do something because this man won't shut up about it. This man will not stop talking about it. And so we got to do something. At this point in 2020, hitters are hitting at an all time low. So they're trying to get a grip on sticky stuff. I'm so sorry about that. In 2020, Major League Baseball's batting average across the league was 245, which was the lowest since 1972, wh
ich is 244. Strikeouts per game were also highly inflated at this point, and in 2020, we saw the lowest amount of hits per game 7.91 hits per game since 1968. What's the math on that? Like 42 years prior, 5252 math. By the start of 2021, more players were beginning to speak out on the issue, including this man right here, Josh Donaldson in June of 2021, the league announces that they're going to be cracking down. More on the use of sticky stuff. Yes, June, right in the middle of the season, they
're going to start making changes. I don't I don't know. That's when they decided not in the offseason in the middle of the season. A lot of players weren't really a fan of the crackdown in the middle of the season, but most agreed that it was at least a step in the right direction. As I mentioned, Bubba Harkins here threw out quite a few names when he was fired a year prior. And so you might be wondering, well, Gerrit Cole, he's you just said his name and nothing happened. While on June 8th, Ge
rrit Cole was interviewed by the New York media and they asked him if he had ever used sticky stuff before. Now let me remind you, using it is equivalent to a suspension. So Gerrit Cole really put together a really thoughtful answer when he was asked, now, do you ever use spider tag while pitching? I don't. I don't know, I don't know if, I don't know quite I don't quite know how to answer that, to be honest. Now, the following day, June 9th, Josh Donaldson has an interview with Fanatics News.com
and says that Cole basically cheats and uses sticky stuff because his spin rate has dropped significantly ever since Major League Baseball announced that they were going to crack down on this stuff. More so picture this year. Cole's fastball has 2000 rotations per minute, and then the league says, hey, we're going to be cracking down on sticky stuff more so you better not be using it. Imagine his rate plummets, Donaldson said. Well done, because he's not using it anymore. Now, the crackdown did
start with Major League Baseball suspending minor league players, and that is effectively when we saw this man's RPMs drop in his pitches. It's a coincidence that Gerrit Cole spin rate numbers went down yesterday after four minor leagues get suspended for ten games. This is is a you know, is that possible? I don't know, maybe a Josh Donaldson says I have a catalog of pitchers that I could call out for using sticky stuff. And look, he says sticky stuff is basically like a ped using sticky stuff
to perform better. It enhances your performance. So it's a ped. It's just not one that you inject in your body, he says. Major League Baseball today is not about having good command, but it is about how nasty your stuff is, which in turn can cause batters to get hit. It can cause people to get hurt, and it is effectively not great for pitchers. Arms tell you that it's not about command now. It's about who's throwing the nastiest. In this interview he says, look, if you really want to crack down
on this, I think the pitcher should be checked every half inning. The only way to get it through and to get it out of the game is if they get checked every half inning. If a new pitcher comes out, they get checked immediately by the umpire. He also refers back to Trevor Bauer's interview in 2020 and how he went after Gerrit Cole as well. I literally think that Trevor Bauer at the beginning of all this was wanting to stop guys from cheating, and his big guy that he went after was Gerrit Cole. Fas
t forward about a week later, on June 15th, Major League Baseball announces that they will be enforcing new rules regarding doctoring a baseball that will go into effect the following week on June 21st. Some of these rules include. Umpires must perform uniform checks periodically throughout games of all pitchers on both teams, whether or not they are suspect of a violation. Starting pitchers will have more than one mandatory check per game, and each relief pitcher will be checked after being rem
oved or the conclusion of the inning, whichever comes first. Umpires may perform additional checks at any time, whether or not they have a reason to. A player that fails his check is immediately ejected and suspended pitchers are also subject to routine inspections. Pitchers refusing to get checked will be ejected and suspended rosin bags can still be used. Remember that teams can't replace the suspended player with a new player, so now you're down a roster spot, etc. etc. lots of new rules that
go into effect six days later in the middle of a season. It's crazy stuff now. June 15th ironic is the first day that Covid restrictions are lifted in Major League Baseball. It's the first day that you can have a full stadium of fans again. Life is good, baseball is back, the stadium's not going to be empty, and Trevor Bauer is making a start that day, which is very exciting. Now, obviously he was asked about the new memos and listen, I'm going to let the interview speak for itself. MLB obvious
ly came out with a statement today, and I was just about the sticky stuff about pitchers using, and I was just wondering what your reaction is to that. Legal term legal. But I bet I guess that's not. Yeah. It looks very illegal, right? It says a combination of sweat and rosin. So I don't know if they can't outlaw sweat and they give me rosin. So am I going to get suspended for for that? I don't know. They just made the umpires judge, jury and executioner. So if an umpire thinks that your hand is
sticky, even if you have nothing on your hand and he decides to throw you out because he doesn't like you, didn't like the team, whatever. Maybe you're arguing balls and strikes earlier. Umpires haven't been trained to know what is sticky and what isn't. And like, if I can hold the ball like this, that's obviously illegal, right? But it's not. It's a mess. typical MLB fashion will say it is nice that four years later they are trying to do something about the integrity of the game, because I've
been talking to him about this issue for four years. Nice. They tried, but wrong time to do it in the middle of a season that needs to be done in the off season. Would you like to see more than just rosin and sweat? Would you like to maybe see that pitchers maybe allow 2 or 3, substances that maybe everybody agrees upon and say, okay, it really doesn't affect the ball as much as some of this stuff that they're using. Now that is really off the charts. The only way to do this is you have to make
the ball somewhat sticky, and then you have to ban everything except for rosin or whatever. So what I'd like to see is when the balls come out of the, the box, there's a little conveyor belt, so you dump the balls in one side, they run down a conveyor belt into a little house, and it's sprayed from all sides with a certain approved substance, whether it's firm grip or whatever else. Like, let's agree upon that substance. The ball comes out the other end and gets dumped into the ball bucket. And
it's good to go for 20 or 30 minutes. You don't have to spray enough on it where the leather gets soft or anything like that, and you just do it every single inning. And that way every ball that gets thrown out has a consistent feel to it. When pitchers come in, there's a little swab. You swap their hands similar to how they do it at TSA, and you send it off to the lab, and if there's anything besides the approved substances on your hand, then you can be retroactively suspended. And that's the o
nly way to do it. But you can't take away the method for pitchers to get a grip on the ball when the balls are sending out to the mound, or super slick in the middle of a season. That's just not right now. Garrett Cole was interviewed two days later on June 17th. One reporter asks Cole if he was having a hard time pitching because of the weather, and pointed out that his spin rate was down and this was his answer. In response to that, know it's look, we're all just trying to roll, just trying to
play by the rules. Play by what, what the commissioners handed out going forward. And so spin. It's not everything. You can still pitch well. You don't have high spin, right? Another reporter piggybacks off of that question and asks about the memo released by Major League Baseball and what his thoughts are on it. I think certainly I, I the intent I agree with uniformity. I agree with probably consensus among all the players, especially everybody that I've spoken to. Now, again, you know, the cu
stoms and practices of the last 20, 30 years in this league are are one thing. And then to make a drastic change in the middle of the season is going to be challenging for a lot of a lot of people. I am a little concerned of of injuries. I would encourage the Commissioner's office to continue to talk with us, please, because we're the ones that throw the ball. They don't. Would you like them to supply you something? A sticky substance that's different from rosin, something that would help, you k
now, that fine line between grip and illegality? I mean, we've heard from the commissioner's office about a universal substance. I, I certainly think that's something to be discussed. I just can't it's it's hard. I mean, it's hard to explain. It's so hard to grip the ball. I just, you know, I mean, for Pete's sake, fast forward to the 2024 season. Baseball has seen a lot of changes since then. The umpire checks continue to happen every half inning, but no one drops their pants and protests anymo
re, which is great. Other rules have been put in place in order to try and increase hits. Which should increase runs, which should increase excitement, which should increase viewership. The implementation of some of these rules makes it a bit challenging to really gauge if the 2021 rule changes may have helped, specifically in more hits and more runs. But pitchers are getting suspended much less often for sticky stuff now that they have to get checked every happening. I would have checked the nu
mbers for you, but Spotrac wants me to pay for a subscription and I simply do not have the time or the money for that. So again, El YouTuber A few players have been suspended a number of times, including Max Scherzer, who's our good friend at this point. We've we've mentioned him quite a number of times Domingo Herrmann, Drew Smith, Robert Suarez, Caleb Smith and Hector Santiago. And listen, guys, there you have it. That is the 2021 Sticky Scandal. I hope you enjoyed. Let me know down below what
your thoughts are on the sticky stuff scandal. Do you think it's still running rampant in the league, and that people have just found a new way to kind of use it? Who is your favorite character in this story? And let me know if you like this style of video. Because I love storytelling. I think it's so much fun and there are so many scandals in Major League Baseball. I have a whole list of them. Let me know if you guys are interested in more content like this. Thank you so much for being here. I
appreciate you so much. Don't forget to not let sports affect your mental health. I love you so much and I will see you soon. Bye.
Comments