“People haven’t pointed to character evidence once, Craig.”

You are saying that he’s not a moron and “there’s no way he’d do this.”  Others doubt this is commonplace because he’s never done it before as far as they know. Maybe “character evidence” is too broad a term, but people are certainly saying “he’d never do this,” and that’s based totally on things other than the evidence set forth in the video I link.

“Angle is inconclusive”

Refresh this post and read again. I admit that the angle could be decieving. At no point have I claimed that this video is damning evidence. It’s anough to base some questions on, and that’s all I’m doing.

“Method does not accord”

From Baseball-Reference.com (http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Spitball):

“Descriptions of how to throw the spitball vary enough that it seems likely that the term actually refers to at least two different pitches. Some pitchers described a pitch in which saliva was placed on one side of the ball, which was then thrown conventionally. Such pitches would tend to break sideways, with the direction of break controlled by which side of the ball was modified. The same general approach works with a ball that was defaced in any way, either by adding any kind of foreign substance or by scuffing the ball’s surface.

“In a second approach, the pitcher would grip the ball so that his fingers didn’t touch the seams, and use saliva or another slippery substance to lubricate the area where his finger tips touched the ball.”

I’ll grant that it’s far more common to see scuffing and/or wetting the fingertips, but spitting right on the ball is not unheard of.

Again, I make no claim that he’s doing this here.  I have no idea, and I don’t suspect you do either, unless you have another angle to provide us.

Yair—

“if the best you can come up with is that on an inconclusive camera angle, Rivera appears to be throwing a rare spitball he has little experience with to make up for declining stuff”

I’m not trying to burn a witch here. You’re reading more into my argument than is really there. I think the video is notable and newsworthy. It may not show anything, but the world of baseball has gotten worked up by far less than this in the past.

As far as the “he has never been caught before” angle:

There were numerous pitchers who everyone KNEW were doctoring the ball, and they they were very rarely caught in the act over very long careers.

You can bet that 10,000 cameras will be trained on every Mo every second he is on the field for the rest of the post season, so let’s see if he get’s caught again (which I doubt) or gets lit up (more likely).

I would chalk this up to:

1. Rivera spits a lot.
2. Video is a 2 dimensional showing of a 3 dimensional world
3. Rivera is on camera a lot
4. At some point there will be a time when he spits with a camera angle that makes it look like he is spitting on a ball.

On the 2-3 dimensional thing - you ever notice how it always looks like the rain is really heavy but nobody on camera seems to be bothered?  It’s because you are seeing all the rain in 2 dimensions making it seem like there there are many more drops in the same place.

/JMHO

A minor quibble, but wouldn’t reduced friction upon release result in *less* spin?

Another possibility (admittedly hypothetical), is that Rivera was trying to get more spin on the ball and spit some sticky fluid (Gatorade perhaps?) on it so that he could get the movement that his cutter depends on.  Didn’t we see Fuentes do something similar for the Rockies two years ago?

The angle is bad, but it looks almost like Rivera has a mouthful of something just prior to spitting it out.  That could be saliva, or it could be something else.

One other question: was his next pitch actually a “cutter”?  If it was a fastball, for instance, the point is moot.

Just last night, my wife and I were trying to think of another human activity where spitting continuously in a public area and grabbing one’s crotch is as nonchalantly accepted as in baseball.  Couldn’t think of any.

So #1 that’s my indirect defense of Mo.

#2 that’s some outstanding investigative journalism on the A-Rod pic.

Don C,

Yankee fans are the best.
That’s debatable apparently. (see yesterday’s post on the subject)

They’re going on about how hes never been caught in the past and certain angles make things look funny and 2nd and 3rd dimensions all played a role in making it seem like he spit on the ball. Just ridiculous.

Maybe ridiculous to you, but defenses based on a person’s character and/or the point of view of a witness, I think, are valid.

Tell me something then Yankee apologists (although I know there is no way i get a truthful answer here): What if the exact same thing happened in game 3 of the ALCS vs. Boston and instead of Mo Rivera it was Jonathon Papelbon? Would you be talking about wierd angles and alternate dimensions then?  I think not…

I call this Freudian Projection. And Don, with your generalizations and name calling I’d say you would have been a good subject for Freud himself.

Is it time to bring out the Johnny Caspar quotes yet?

I’m going with not cheating just because, jeezum, he knows how many cameras are trained on him at any given moment in and out of the game and this is just so blatant. He can’t be that dumb. He can’t be that… absentminded. No way.