David Cone's Rosin + Alcohol demo makes Ignorant Fans and Umpires look silly.

[h2oface]

I didn't know either, but I do now. How do you feel now if you accused Scherzer and German of lying so?

"Cone’s point was to depict how everything Scherzer said — and everything the umpires noticed — was consistent with what happens when a person mixes sweat with rosin, and then adds alcohol (as Scherzer was forced to do)."

https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2023/04/24/david-cone-rosin-experiment-sunday-night-baseball-max-scherzer-suspension

https://larrybrownsports.com/baseball/david-cone-rosin-experiment-espn-max-scherzer/614331

https://www.yardbarker.com/mlb/articles/david_cone_conducts_rosin_experiment_in_examination_of_scherzer_case/s1_127_38732706

"MLB Crew Chief Dan Bellino said that Scherzer’s hand was “far stickier than anything we’ve felt” at the time of his ejection. Scherzer said he washed his hands with alcohol in front of league officials in between innings on Wednesday. As Cone’s experiment indicated, the presence of alcohol combined with rosin resulted in his hand getting significantly stickier than with the rock rosin alone."

 

[Nine of twelve]

This works well for grease residue on hands: Liberally apply cooking oil and rub your hands thoroughly as if washing them, then dry with a paper towel. The oil dissolves the grease. After that, to get rid of the cooking oil, wash thoroughly a couple times with soap and water. Takes no more than 2-3 minutes. I don't know if that's ever been tried with rosin but my guess is it would work.

[Craig Arko]

35 minutes ago, Nine of twelve said:

This works well for grease residue on hands: Liberally apply cooking oil and rub your hands thoroughly as if washing them, then dry with a paper towel. The oil dissolves the grease. After that, to get rid of the cooking oil, wash thoroughly a couple times with soap and water. Takes no more than 2-3 minutes. I don't know if that's ever been tried with rosin but my guess is it would work.

Send this to Rob Manfred.

[Schmoeman5]

2 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

This works well for grease residue on hands: Liberally apply cooking oil and rub your hands thoroughly as if washing them, then dry with a paper towel. The oil dissolves the grease. After that, to get rid of the cooking oil, wash thoroughly a couple times with soap and water. Takes no more than 2-3 minutes. I don't know if that's ever been tried with rosin but my guess is it would work.

That's how I season my cast iron pans. 😊 

[h2oface]

12 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

This works well for grease residue on hands: Liberally apply cooking oil and rub your hands thoroughly as if washing them, then dry with a paper towel. The oil dissolves the grease. After that, to get rid of the cooking oil, wash thoroughly a couple times with soap and water. Takes no more than 2-3 minutes. I don't know if that's ever been tried with rosin but my guess is it would work.

Rosin is not grease, so maybe, but I doubt it. The solvent should be tried and tested, and supplied to all teams, and not a best guess, that is for sure. While soluble in alcohol, ether, benzene, and chloroform, none of them except alcohol is an option, and Cone's demo shows that it just increases the stickiness of what is left. Perhaps it is not a solvent that is needed, but something other than rosin that is the option provided for universal allowed stickiness. But the mass judgement by so many condemning the pitchers and accussing them of lying is now laughable.

This ought to clear it up: 😇

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspor.2020.00030/full

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosin#:~:text=It is soluble in alcohol%2C ether%2C benzene and chloroform.

[Seth Stohs]

Someone sent this to me this morning... it's crazy. Absolutely fascinating! 

[Dman]

I thought Glen Perkins brought it up in one of the games that it took him a long time to get rosin off of his fingers.  So it doesn't appear to be a particular easy process.  Will be interesting to see how they handle this especially as the weather heats up and a body sweats even more.

[LonelyseatinMOA]

Silly Umpire, he should've know that K2-EDTA is the best compound to dissolve rosin not Isopropyl alcohol 

[LonelyseatinMOA]

I heard on the tipping pitches podcast that instead of a lab test for foreign compounds the umpires could do a field stickiness test. It would involve the pitcher grip an object of a specified weight and turn over their hand, if the object sticks to their hand and doesn't fall to the ground they are ejected, if it falls their hand is fine. That would be a good way to standardize hand stickiness and make sure these rules are being applied fairly and evenly. 

 

The only thing is that MLB would need to fund some studies to find out what the weight of the object should be

[ashbury]

41 minutes ago, LonelyseatinMOA said:

I heard on the tipping pitches podcast that instead of a lab test for foreign compounds the umpires could do a field stickiness test. It would involve the pitcher grip an object of a specified weight and turn over their hand, if the object sticks to their hand and doesn't fall to the ground they are ejected, if it falls their hand is fine. That would be a good way to standardize hand stickiness and make sure these rules are being applied fairly and evenly. 

 

The only thing is that MLB would need to fund some studies to find out what the weight of the object should be

How to standardize how hard the pitcher grips, though?

[Original_JB]

Goof off.

[h2oface]

10 hours ago, LonelyseatinMOA said:

I heard on the tipping pitches podcast that instead of a lab test for foreign compounds the umpires could do a field stickiness test. It would involve the pitcher grip an object of a specified weight and turn over their hand, if the object sticks to their hand and doesn't fall to the ground they are ejected, if it falls their hand is fine. That would be a good way to standardize hand stickiness and make sure these rules are being applied fairly and evenly. 

 

The only thing is that MLB would need to fund some studies to find out what the weight of the object should be

I don't see how that would be a solution at all. It could stick for one pitch and not the next or the one before because you grabbed the rosin bag again. How would a player know the right amount, the right mixture of sweat and rosin?And if you feel it is too much as you sweat more, you wipe it off on your pants, or it gets on your glove. Sure, the way it is now is ripe for abuse, but you could not be meaning to abuse the the use and do anyway. If rosin is legal, it should be legal. Or don't have it legal, but it should not be subjective. With what you propose, it would be variable with each pitch as sweat changes or you went to the legal rosin bag one too many times. The fact that the pitcher did what the MLB official told them to do and used alcohol to clean it off, and that caused the increased stickiness, and then they get ejected (and suspended perhaps) for what it caused, is ludicrous.

[LonelyseatinMOA]

12 hours ago, h2oface said:

I don't see how that would be a solution at all. It could stick for one pitch and not the next or the one before because you grabbed the rosin bag again. How would a player know the right amount, the right mixture of sweat and rosin?And if you feel it is too much as you sweat more, you wipe it off on your pants, or it gets on your glove. Sure, the way it is now is ripe for abuse, but you could not be meaning to abuse the the use and do anyway. If rosin is legal, it should be legal. Or don't have it legal, but it should not be subjective. With what you propose, it would be variable with each pitch as sweat changes or you went to the legal rosin bag one too many times. The fact that the pitcher did what the MLB official told them to do and used alcohol to clean it off, and that caused the increased stickiness, and then they get ejected (and suspended perhaps) for what it caused, is ludicrous.

They way I heard it being proposed was it is an attempt at standardizing stickiness rather than trying to determine which substances a pitcher can use. However, you bring up good points and there are problems with it.

 

I agree that it was incredibly silly how and why scherzer was ejected 

[h2oface]

Update story in Sports Illustrated. No mention that the umpire told him to use alcohol. And the official seems to be not much of an "official". There is no plans to change anything at this time. Stickiness is allowed until the umpire says it is too much, with no criteria other than.... "that is too sticky now, in my opinion, and i am the Power". Not a great standard to base a rule on. But then, it is similar to guessing at the strike zone that has no visible boundries and calling balls and strikes.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2023/04/26/mlb-suspension-max-scherzer-truth-behind-sticky-substance-stickygate

“Pitchers can’t use soap and water because it softens the tissues of the fingers, and that’s how you can get blisters,” Boras says.

Describing his actions, Scherzer told reporters, “I am in front of the MLB official that is underneath [near the dugout]. I wash my hands with alcohol in front of the official.”

The “MLB official” near the dugout is a part-time seasonal employee with no administrative authority.

The official is a gameday compliance monitor (GCM) who is “responsible for monitoring and reporting Club compliance with gameday requirements, as well as providing support to the sign stealing and use of electronic devices enforcement program,” according to an MLB job posting description. GCMs are paid $27.50 per hour. They are eyes and ears only for MLB. They report any violations but do not intervene."

[h2oface]

3 hours ago, LonelyseatinMOA said:

They way I heard it being proposed was it is an attempt at standardizing stickiness rather than trying to determine which substances a pitcher can use. However, you bring up good points and there are problems with it.

 

I agree that it was incredibly silly how and why scherzer was ejected 

There certainly needs to be a standard that is not subjective, that is for sure, whatever the substance is, or becomes. It would seem to me to have it on the balls out of the box. Develop the balls with the help of the MLBPA and if they don't like a ball they get a different one. 

[h2oface]

[Trov]

One thing that I heard a sports talk person say is that rosin is legal, but the rule also says too much rosin is not.  They went on to say that there is no clear standard and up to each umpire.  This is a problem, because each pitcher may do same thing a bunch of times, then runs into the ump that says you are too sticky, when every other ump said you good. 

I can say Max is the type that will take every rule to the extreme if it works in his advantage.  He basically said he would be doing that with the pitch clock and did testing of the rule during spring. So he may have very well just used rosin, but if he knew he could get extra sticky using rosin, that can be a violation of the rule as well is my understanding. 

[gil4]

Re: "significantly stickier than with the rock rosin alone."

Is rock rosin legal? For softball (umpiring) , I have been told only powdered rosin is legal, that powdered rosin is a drying agent while rock rosin is sticky and transfers to the ball. 

[h2oface]

47 minutes ago, gil4 said:

Re: "significantly stickier than with the rock rosin alone."

Is rock rosin legal? For softball (umpiring) , I have been told only powdered rosin is legal, that powdered rosin is a drying agent while rock rosin is sticky and transfers to the ball. 

 

Yes. I have read that there is a bag of both on the back of the mounds.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

On 4/26/2023 at 5:09 PM, Original_JB said:

Goof off.

Yup! Rosin is pine sap, so orange oil, goo gone, goof off, dish soap, all those water based degreasing acids would do the job, turpentine too, but might be too harsh.

Rubbing alcohol is supposed to work too, but you need a lot.