Spitball, Spitball, Wherefore Art Thou Spitball?

I remember as a young boy being fascinated by the mere idea of a spitball. I would look at my parents incredulously and ask “You mean, that instead of not licking things like you tell me, I would purposely lick a baseball to throw at someone? Cooooool.” Of course, just like parental figures, Major League Baseball wised up and decided to outlaw the practice, mostly on grounds of ickiness.

Despite the illegality of it, the spitball continued on for many years, with pitchers teaching their younger brethren the art of getting away with it. But now it’s mostly disappeared. Jonah Keri goes in depth and blames Bruce Sutter, a new era of sportsmanship, and that dag gummed beast, technology:

“Chesbro and Cicotte pitched decades before the advent of television. When Perry and Sutton first broke in, you might have one or two primitive cameras to cover the entire field of play. Even when Rogers got caught on live TV just six years ago, games weren’t routinely broadcast in high-definition the way they are now. Now you have an army of crystal-clear cameras and legions of video experts able to slice and dice footage and discover the tiniest little transgression. Advanced play-by-play systems such as PITCHf/x and TrackMan go even further, tracking the arm angle, break, and velocity on every single pitch thrown in a big league game. Even a handful of aberrations would show up as big, flashing question marks to the brilliant analysts who break down such data for a living. Technology has done more than its share to exterminate the spitter.”

If the anti-instant replay rally wanted to win over some new supporters, they could do worse than using this argument. Despite my immoral (and probably illegal) lust for PITCHfx and MLB.tv, I’m already prepared to get rid of my computer and television in hopes of ushering in a new era of spitballs. Because in what other sport can one claim such a rich history of cheating that is more art than unsportsmanlike conduct?

Read through for the entire article because, as with all of Keri’s pieces, it’s a good one.