Call it "Bye, bye American Pie" as a Major League Baseball is forced to punish a star Yankees player for doing something most pitchers do on a regular basis.
When pitcher Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda was outed as cheating, by using sticky pine tar to make his ball more sticky and help him create some great curves or breaks in his pitch, you'd think it was the first time a major league player was cheating.
Pineda was suspended 10 games by Major League Baseball after he blatantly showed off some pine tar on his neck during a game at Fenway Park against the Red Sox.
But usage of Pine Tar, prohibited in baseball since it offers the pitcher an unnatural advantage to their pitches, allowing them to throw a curve ball and watch it break in an unpredictable way and often strike out the batter, is nothing new.
Yesterday, Dirk Hayhurst, who was a well known Major League pitcher with the San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays, said this practice of using Pine Tar to cheat - along with a cache of other secret tricks to make that ball sticky for surprising pitches - is as old as the American game itself.
Speaking on air to radio host Amy Eddings, Hayhurst described his career - and said it is common knowledge and accepted by baseball teams that pitchers will be trying to sneak in some sticky help.
"I did everything to the ball," he said.
Hayhurst said just about every pitcher in the league did something to help their pitch, and that this illegal habit was well known by everyone from coaches to other players.
He also said no one was really trying to hurt Pineda by suspending him from playing for using Pine Tar, but instead because he did it like it was no big deal.
Hayhurst said he and his fellow pitchers would dream up inventive ways to get their balls ready for a game, from wearing sunscreen on their hands and then getting them wet - to make them sticky - to other more nefarious means.
One pitcher, he noted, would wear his necklace at every game, so when he pitched it would pop out from his shirt, and then he would reach into his shirt to put it back, and conveniently smear his fingers with Pine Tar.
When asked why this use of Pine Tar by Pineda was such a big deal, when everyone in major league baseball knows it is commonly used, Hayhurst said it was the blatant and nonchalant way the ousted pitcher used the illegal Pine Tar that did him in for a ten game suspension.
Only two nights beforehand, Pine Tar was evident on Pineda's hand as he pitched, showing up on national television.
Turns out some major league baseball is as American as mass produced apple pie - the kind made in commercial factories with ingredients using very little apple and plenty of chemical ingredients.
With a multi-billion dollar business at stake, the pressure for these athletes is large. But with today's high definition cameras, hiding those pesky rule breakers is not so easy.
Updates to follow.
