Here is what the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole should have said last week when asked if he had ever used Spider Tack while pitching: “I follow all the rules that baseball is willing to enforce.”
That would have put the emphasis where it belongs.
On Tuesday, Major League Baseball formally announced “enhanced enforcement” of its longstanding rules prohibiting the application of foreign substances to baseballs. This continues the sport’s tradition of winking at scofflaws until the situation gets out of control.
Do we really think that the 1919 Chicago White Sox were the first group of players to take money for fixing games?