Welcome to Joe’s Week in Baseball, a meandering diary of thoughts, ideas, essays, stats … you know, baseball stuff that will run each week. Here’s this week’s entry.
Saturday, June 5
I’m rubber, you are glue
Baseball is a game of cheaters (or players pushing the edge). It has always been so. The very essence of the game as we know it — a titanic battle between a pitcher and hitter — comes from pitchers pushing the edge (or cheating) by refusing to play by the simple rules of the day. Pitchers were supposed to, well, pitch the ball, underhanded, like horseshoes, for the sole purpose of starting the action. Hitters were even allowed to ask for pitches to be thrown in a specific location — as in Kit’s famous “
