What the hell is all the fuss about? So, Kenny Rogers is suddenly deadly effective in the clutch! You can’t pin that on the pine tar. Or benzo-something-ate, or whatever it is pitchers slip on to gain a better purchase on the ball.
All the geeks who’ve pored over the video tapes can tell you, he’s had the same smudge on his hand through a good not great (17-8) regular season too. So have a lot of pitchers, especially after swinging the pine in the National League.
It’s a part of the game. Who says so? Tony La Russa for one. I guess that’s why he didn’t himself make a whole big deal of it. Come to that neither did Joe Torre. Yet it was there to be challenged.
I guess Rogers was careless in flouting one of Baseball’s famous unwritten rules just a little too brazenly … Just like the speedster who’s copped for an 80mph dash when he normally gets away with a 75mph dash.
That’s the entire scale of it.
And let’s remember Rogers was pretty darn good once he’d got rid of the stuff, whatever it was.
Maybe with him it’s more a mental crutch than physical help he needs; but isn’t that what we’ve always known about this 200 win vet with an under achieving playoff slate?
Maybe this time the ‘numbers’ game is smiling his way. But game 6 could be his defining moment. With this niggling in his head it’s going to be tougher than ever.
It sure is stacking up to a gripping World Series though. And maybe, just maybe, La Russa has gotten one over on his old friend Jim ‘horse whisperer’ Leland by putting this one in his back pocket.
Leland has been spot-on with his decision making and man management to date in these playoffs, getting this thing out of Rogers head in time for a game 6 win could be his greatest challenge yet.
Play ball!
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