4 ms·

Ball tampering has been a thing since baseball's inception. It's nothing new.

cryptoz 5y ago
Sure, tech isn't new either. People have been doing startups and tech forever, it's nothing new. Better not have any discussions about tech since it's old news. Humans have always been innovating.
- void_mint 5y ago
  Right but when people post about a new tech, they don't say "Tech's dirty little secret is out". This post is pretending ball tampering is a secret. What's the secret if it's been a thing forever and has always been public?
  - cryptoz 5y ago
    > Right but when people post about a new tech, they don't say "Tech's dirty little secret is out". Sure they do, in droves: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Tech%27s+dirty+little+secret+is+out%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Tech%27s+dirty+little+sec... > What's the secret if it's been a thing forever and has always been public? I don't think the assumptions in your question are true. I'd wager that a _lot_ more people are talking about ball tampering now than ever before.
    - void_mint 5y ago
      > Sure they do, in droves: And a post about "Tech's Dirty Little Secret" would be appropriately downvoted off the front page of this website. > I don't think the assumptions in your question are true. I'd wager that a _lot_ more people are talking about ball tampering now than ever before. How can it be a secret if "more people are talking about ball tampering than ever before"? Where's the secret?
      - cryptoz 5y ago
        The secret is out. That's the point. Not many people were talking about it before. The "secret". Now a lot of people are talking about it. The secret is now "out". There have been lots of highly-upvoted and heavily-commented "dirty secret is out" posts on HN's front page. I don't want to argue so I'll just leave it at that.
        void_mint 5y ago
        > The secret is out. That's the point. Not many people were talking about it before. The "secret". Now a lot of people are talking about it. The secret is now "out". But that's what I'm saying. This has been talked to death. For years and years it has been talked about. Someone hearing about it for the first time does not make something a secret. > I don't want to argue so I'll just leave it at that. "I don't want to argue so I'll just argue and then say I don't want to argue" ? Anyway if ball tampering is a new thing to you, I hope you learned how terrible and problematic it is for the sport.
perrygeo 5y ago
Yeah "Dirty little secret" - at this point, is it really a secret? Scuffed balls, spitballs, various sticky substances, etc has been used to alter baseball pitches for decades. A pitcher from my high school got caught (and banned from the league) for doing this in 1992. It's all fairly obvious how it works from a physics perspective. There's absolutely no secret at all.
slg 5y ago
I am reminded of the old adage "what can be measured can be optimized". Pitchers have always added substances to baseballs, but they were mostly doing it by feel. It was only roughly a decade ago that technology was first introduced that could accurately measure a pitch's movement. It was even more recently that technology was introduced that could accurately measure the spin of a pitch. Now that pitchers are armed with this tech, they can optimize for spin and movement. They can experiment with all sorts of different substances, do the exact experiments described in this article, literally hire chemists to come up with better formulas, and share the most effective substances with their teammates. In the end, this measurement technology has led to a drastic improvement in the effectiveness of the use of these foreign substances. That has altered the balance between pitchers and hitters that is important to keep the game actually entertaining to watch.
- perrygeo 5y ago
  Excellent point! When a technology becomes more efficient it goes from being something useful to something game-altering (literally). There's a good analogy to professional road cycling. Before Lance Armstrong, of course cyclists did drugs and tried to gain ever dietary/fitness/metabolic advantage they could through experimentation. But then we got well-funded and systematic methods to measure the effects of the cheat, methods to cleanly implement the cheat at the professional level, and methods to bully everyone on the team into compliance...
peter422 5y ago
The reason people care is because balls in play are hitting historic lows and to many that is making baseball less exciting, and the league is worried about the fans losing interest. This particular form of manipulating the ball is just too widespread and too effective and that is why the crackdown is happening.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  If controlling foreign substances is too difficult, MLB could change things they can easily control like mound height and ball elasticity. Pitchers can coat their hands in whatever, but if they're throwing superballs from a one-inch mound it won't help them.
  - waiseristy 5y ago
    I think this is actually the way the players have preferred it be regulated. A good grip on the ball means batters have to worry less about getting randomly pegged. Not to mention how difficult it is to check every square inch of a pitcher to determine if he/she has sticky spots to touch when pitching. https://youtu.be/1bqOOyMjCCM?t=157 https://youtu.be/1bqOOyMjCCM?t=157 Though there should probably be a single "approved" substance, and the rest be banned so we're not dealing with balls covered in whatever random slime the team came up with
bingidingi 5y ago
I think many fans are oblivious to the scale of tampering, they just remember the few instances that get called out (which are usually particularly sloppy cases weaponized by the opposing team). There are multiple people in the league that corroborate the fact that most pitchers are doing this. Some clubs are allegedly paying chemists to improve their doctoring. It's come too far from putting a little spit on the ball. Time to drag it into the light.

Sure, tech isn't new either. People have been doing startups and tech forever, it's nothing new. Better not have any discussions about tech since it's old news. Humans have always been innovating.

void_mint 5y ago
Right but when people post about a new tech, they don't say "Tech's dirty little secret is out". This post is pretending ball tampering is a secret. What's the secret if it's been a thing forever and has always been public?
- cryptoz 5y ago
  > Right but when people post about a new tech, they don't say "Tech's dirty little secret is out". Sure they do, in droves: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Tech%27s+dirty+little+secret+is+out%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Tech%27s+dirty+little+sec... > What's the secret if it's been a thing forever and has always been public? I don't think the assumptions in your question are true. I'd wager that a _lot_ more people are talking about ball tampering now than ever before.
  - void_mint 5y ago
    > Sure they do, in droves: And a post about "Tech's Dirty Little Secret" would be appropriately downvoted off the front page of this website. > I don't think the assumptions in your question are true. I'd wager that a _lot_ more people are talking about ball tampering now than ever before. How can it be a secret if "more people are talking about ball tampering than ever before"? Where's the secret?
    - cryptoz 5y ago
      The secret is out. That's the point. Not many people were talking about it before. The "secret". Now a lot of people are talking about it. The secret is now "out". There have been lots of highly-upvoted and heavily-commented "dirty secret is out" posts on HN's front page. I don't want to argue so I'll just leave it at that.
      - void_mint 5y ago
        > The secret is out. That's the point. Not many people were talking about it before. The "secret". Now a lot of people are talking about it. The secret is now "out". But that's what I'm saying. This has been talked to death. For years and years it has been talked about. Someone hearing about it for the first time does not make something a secret. > I don't want to argue so I'll just leave it at that. "I don't want to argue so I'll just argue and then say I don't want to argue" ? Anyway if ball tampering is a new thing to you, I hope you learned how terrible and problematic it is for the sport.

perrygeo 5y ago

Yeah "Dirty little secret" - at this point, is it really a secret? Scuffed balls, spitballs, various sticky substances, etc has been used to alter baseball pitches for decades. A pitcher from my high school got caught (and banned from the league) for doing this in 1992. It's all fairly obvious how it works from a physics perspective. There's absolutely no secret at all.

slg 5y ago

I am reminded of the old adage "what can be measured can be optimized". Pitchers have always added substances to baseballs, but they were mostly doing it by feel. It was only roughly a decade ago that technology was first introduced that could accurately measure a pitch's movement. It was even more recently that technology was introduced that could accurately measure the spin of a pitch. Now that pitchers are armed with this tech, they can optimize for spin and movement. They can experiment with all sorts of different substances, do the exact experiments described in this article, literally hire chemists to come up with better formulas, and share the most effective substances with their teammates. In the end, this measurement technology has led to a drastic improvement in the effectiveness of the use of these foreign substances. That has altered the balance between pitchers and hitters that is important to keep the game actually entertaining to watch.

perrygeo 5y ago
Excellent point! When a technology becomes more efficient it goes from being something useful to something game-altering (literally). There's a good analogy to professional road cycling. Before Lance Armstrong, of course cyclists did drugs and tried to gain ever dietary/fitness/metabolic advantage they could through experimentation. But then we got well-funded and systematic methods to measure the effects of the cheat, methods to cleanly implement the cheat at the professional level, and methods to bully everyone on the team into compliance...

peter422 5y ago

The reason people care is because balls in play are hitting historic lows and to many that is making baseball less exciting, and the league is worried about the fans losing interest. This particular form of manipulating the ball is just too widespread and too effective and that is why the crackdown is happening.

jessaustin 5y ago
If controlling foreign substances is too difficult, MLB could change things they can easily control like mound height and ball elasticity. Pitchers can coat their hands in whatever, but if they're throwing superballs from a one-inch mound it won't help them.
- waiseristy 5y ago
  I think this is actually the way the players have preferred it be regulated. A good grip on the ball means batters have to worry less about getting randomly pegged. Not to mention how difficult it is to check every square inch of a pitcher to determine if he/she has sticky spots to touch when pitching. https://youtu.be/1bqOOyMjCCM?t=157 https://youtu.be/1bqOOyMjCCM?t=157 Though there should probably be a single "approved" substance, and the rest be banned so we're not dealing with balls covered in whatever random slime the team came up with

bingidingi 5y ago

I think many fans are oblivious to the scale of tampering, they just remember the few instances that get called out (which are usually particularly sloppy cases weaponized by the opposing team). There are multiple people in the league that corroborate the fact that most pitchers are doing this. Some clubs are allegedly paying chemists to improve their doctoring. It's come too far from putting a little spit on the ball. Time to drag it into the light.